Piper Alpha
>The Piper Alpha Disaster
Background
Piper Alpha was a North Sea oil production platform operated by Occidental
Petroleum (Caledonia) Ltd. The platform began production in 1976, first as
an oil platform and then later converted to gas production. An explosion and
resulting fire destroyed it on July 6, 1988, killing 167 men. Total insured
loss was about $3.4 billion. To date it is the world's worst offshore oil
disaster in terms both of lives lost and impact to industry. At the time of
the disaster the platform accounted for around ten percent of the oil and
gas production from the North Sea.
Additional Resources:
- Learning
from the Piper Alpha Accident: A Postmortem Analysis of Technical and
Organizational Factors (Risk Analysis, Volume 13, Issue 2, 1993)