IT was the tragedy they said should never happen again. Thirty years ago 167 men died after a gas leak - so loud workers heard it hissing - turned their North Sea platform in to a fireball. Yet just this spring Britain’s safety watchdog said recent hydrocarbon releases had brought rigs “perilously close to disaster”
As Scotland’s oil workers prepare to mark the anniversary of Piper Alpha, the world’s worst ever offshore accident, industry leaders are again under pressure on safety.
Unions acknowledge huge strides were made to avoid a repeat of the 1988 explosions. But they fear further progress has stalled since oil prices last tumbled.
Jake Molloy, veteran safety campaigner and regional organiser of the RMT union, said: “I thought after 25 years (since Piper Alpha) we were making great inroads into the objective of continuous improvement.
“Regrettably, 40 dollar barrels came along and I think that’s had a detrimental impact as the drive to reduce costs and improve efficiency has had a detrimental effect on the attitudes and behaviours of workers who have lost that impetus.
“The consensus now seems to be that safety is at a cost and the whole drive has stopped and has been sacrificed to cost.”
- READ MORE: Remembering Piper Alpha
Oil prices peaked in 2008, fell back after the global credit crunch and then reached near records again between 2010 and 2014. Their crash, to just $30 a barrel in early 2016, sparked dramatic downsizing in the North Sea and real angst on health and safety. Prices have since doubled again, though remain well short of their heights.
Jake Molloy
Mr Molloy said producers in the North Sea - a mature field where the oil and gas left is can be expensive to extract - where watching their bottom line carefully.
Her said: “Regrettably we see with too many operators that there’s a reluctance. Their only interest is reducing cost at any cost. That is unacceptable.”
A public inquiry into the Piper Alpha tragedy, chaired by Lord Cullen, produced 106 recommendations for the sector, all of which were accepted. It also detailed the horror of what of Scotland’s worst human tragedies since World War Two. Only 62 men survived. Many bodies were never found. Three successive explosions - the first after a safety valve was not fitted to a gas pipe - ripped the rig apart. A 700C inferno destroyed everything, even melting the hard hats of its victims.
In April, the Health and Safety Executive wrote to North Sea operators over concerns about continued oil and gas leaks in the industry, saying several hydrocarbon releases in recent years had come “perilously close to disaster”. Lord Cullen added his voice, calling for a “reporting culture” in which people should feel able to raise any safety concerns.
Mr Molloy said he has seen both good and bad examples of that culture working in practice.
He said: “I’m dealing with one lad just now who sustained a very serious injury, it’s a life-changing injury.
“But it could have been prevented because the danger signs were highlighted to management months before. They refused to listen to those concerns.”
- READ MORE: Remembering Piper Alpha
Les Linklater, of not-for-profit group Step Change in Safety reckons the industry kept up progress during the downturn. But he stressed the big changes coming as the North Sea came to the end of its life. The current generation of workers, he said, must not think “the job is done”.
He said: “The UK specifically will move into late life and decommissioning and that presents new challenges
Deirdre Michie, Oil & Gas UK’s chief executive, also argued dropping prices had not brought poor safety standards.
She said: “However, while people still get hurt at work, and while there are still hydrocarbon releases offshore, we know complacency is a real threat and as an industry we have to remain chronically uneasy to help ensure safe operations.
“Concerted effort by installation operators; their workforce; the specialist contractors who support them in their efforts; by the regulators and by everyone involved in the industry - this has been the way we have built the improvements in offshore safety in the decades since Piper Alpha, based on the recommendations of the Cullen Report.
“It is the way we will continue to improve and to honour the legacy of the 167 men who lost their lives thirty years ago.”
The man 'getting on with life' after 30 years of questions and PTSD
He still does not understand how the mistakes were made that cost the lives of 167 of his friends and colleagues. Geoff Bollands was on duty in the control room of the Piper Alpha platform when a cloud of leaked gas condensate ignited at around 10pm on July, 1988. The blast knocked him back 15ft. It also saved his life. Because as one of the first injured, he did not stay on the rig, instead making is way down a rope to take one of two last places on a tiny rescue ship.
Three decades later Mr Bollands is still living with the post-traumatic stress disorder - and the mystery of why a safety valve was not replaced.
He said: "I can't understand why the job wasn't handed over from one shift to another. Because they were conscientious, reliable colleagues of mine.
The Piper Alpha Memorial
"Three people should have handed it over, three people should have received it. And out of six of them, five were killed."
The 70-year-old added: "My injuries saved my life really. Because I knew I couldn't do much and I got off. I would have stayed behind like the other lads did."
Mr Bollands, from Middlesbrough, has described his PTSD in a new book, Baptism of Fire: Life, Death and Piper Alpha, out for the anniversary.
He said: "I've always just felt grateful that I got off.
"I've always talked about it - my doctor encouraged me to. It seems like the more I talk about it, the easier it gets.
"But I've got to say that as I wrote the book I had some quite emotional times. I shed the odd tear. "I didn't even know I had PTSD - people told me afterwards I had it.
"I didn't get any professional help. My wife Christine was a nurse and kept trying to get me to go to a psychiatrist.
"I wouldn't, I just kept saying there was nothing wrong with me, and it was everybody else.
Why the world will also remember the planet's worst ever offshore oil disaster
The disaster was in Scotland's seas. But it's impact was global. So too will be in remembrance.
This Friday the 30th anniversary of the Piper Alpha will be marked by an event at Aberdeen's Piper Alpha Memorial Garden in the city's Hazlehead Park.
The names of all 167 men who lost their lives on July 6 1988 will be read out to relatives, friends and representatives from the oil and gas sector.
The ceremony will be in the thoughts of offshore oil workers far from Aberdeen. In Houston, Texas, one of the world's energy capitals, industry figures will gather to watch a life stream at the city's Petroleum Club.
Nick Mair, an Aberdeen-born oil executive told industry magazine Energy Voice : "When we do our training over here the first thing we use is the story of Piper Alpha video.
"The North Sea is the most intense area that I’m aware of where safety is paramount. I think the US is doing great and I think it’s predominantly industry that’s driving it forward.”
Piper Alpha came eight years after a semi-submersible accommodation platform capsized in the North Sea, killing 123 people. The Alexander L. Kielland was in the Norwegian sector, east of Dundee. But the oil-rich seas between Scotland and Scandinavia have seen other deaths too, and these are not forgotten when the big anniversaries come up. Helicopter crashes make the headlines. Routine industrial accidents, usually involving just one fatality, do not.
There have been multi-fatality disasters at offshore rigs in Brazil, Thailand, China, Canada and India. Several tragedies have occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, the fields served by Houston. These include one of the most recent, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon tragedy when 11 workers died in an explosion and fire which also caused what is believed to be the world's most damaging oil spill ever recorded.
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