The Essay Explores The Safety Case Regime

What caused the Piper Alpha oil and gas platform explosion?

Question:

Explain The Key Risk Management Features Of The Safety Case Regime In Reducing The Risk Of Major Accidents And Describe How Its Application May Have Prevented The Piper Alpha Oil & Gas Platform Explosion In 1988?

An oil production platform located in the North Sea, Piper Alpha is notoriously known for its deadliest explosion that had ever occurred in the oil and gas industry in the year of 1988. On July 6 of the year of 1988, owing to a miscommunication as well as the occurrence of a safety lapse involving one of the platform’s two condensate pumps, resulted in the biggest man-made catastrophic incidents in the human history, that in turn had resulted in the death of 167 workers, with 165 crewmen gone mussing and 30 bodies never ever been recovered again (Broadribb 2015). Considering the adversity of the explosion, and the large number of fatalities involved in the accident, the question that arises here is that how could the safety regime in the US offshore oil industry have remained apparently impervious to the lessons of previous disasters. Further, the next question that arises in this connection is that are the safety standards on this rig so far below the prevailing norms in the industry that it resulted in such a massive explosion (Ellul 2014). It becomes clearly evident that the issue of risk prediction, and risk assessment and prevention remain absolutely intractable issues in the offshore industry. Hence, the report intends to critically evaluate the risk factors that should have been identified and assessed by Piper Alpha, and the identification of which could help in the elimination of the disaster as well.

Prior to discussing the key risk management features of the safety case regime, it is important to highlight what caused the explosion.

The Piper Alpha Platform was constructed in two sections. The platform consists of the gas processing system containing two high pressure condensate pumps. For safe side the platform was built 300m high and the design was modular. It comprises of four main operating areas which were separated by firewalls. The platform was equipped with the automatic fire fighting system. Both the electric and seawater pumps were present to supply water (Shallcross 2013). On one of the high-pressure condensate pumps, maintenance work was carried out simultaneously. It led to the leak in condensates. During this situation, one of this pump’s pressure safety valves was removed for repair. The condensate pipe was temporarily sealed with the blind flange due to incomplete work. Unaware of the fact that the maintenance work is going on, one of the night crew turned on the alternate pump. Consequently, severe explosion has occurred, as the firewalls and the blind flange could not handle the pressure.  Further, the team failed to close the gas from the other platform that is connected with the Piper. This intensified the explosion. In addition the automatic fire fighting system also did not work as before the accident the drivers worked underwater. The heat and smoke prevented the helicopter services (Broadribb 2015). It can be concluded from the literature review that the cause of the accident was human factor. The initial leak in the Piper Alpha was due to maintenance error.

Key risk management features of the safety case regime

The key risk management features of the safety care regimes that are helpful in reducing the risks are-

• Management and human resources- Any worker newly recruited are to be given training. The training should be based on the use of safe procedures and emergency response. It includes training of the platform mangers on responding to emergencies, and appropriately instructs the workmen on the board. A great emphasis should be laid on the practice of permit to work system. There must be regular audit and review of the system to ensure its efficacy. Employees should be aware of the short messaging system during the risk operation (Eloff and Bella 2018 ).
• Design and process- The company should use the system to understand the risk and hazards such as tools called the QRA and ALARP or any other checklists. The areas prone to the hazard should be segregated from the other areas such as control room and accommodations (Paterson 2011). There should be a regular update on the firewalls and control rooms. The blast walls and the muster areas should be regularly upgraded. The company must have both the active and the passive fire protection system and is to be used in emergency (Okoh and Haugen 2014). There must be a variety of the exit rooms and escape systems for evacuation during the hazards. In order to prevent the smoke ingress there is a need of system called “temporary safe refugee”. The employees should be able to access the different escape equipments. These secondary instruments may include ladders, rope, life boats and nets (Christou and Konstantinidou 2012)
• Safety and Health- All the employees must receive the annual safety training. This training shall include both the existing employees and the new employees to expose them on the emergency response during the event of fire or any other hazard. There is a need of regular auditing of the workplace. Inspection must be carried to ensure the health and safety factors in the workplaces. There is a need of the enforcing stringent laws to ensure occupational health and safety (Shallcross and Mathew 2015)

Permit to work or PTW system is the other safety case regime. This system was not used properly. If only this system worked successfully there would have been adequate communication. It would have prevented the fatalities and civil convictions. There was no remedial action taken by the company. When one of the pumps was shut down, the contractor simply signed off the PTW. As a result when the next shift worker arrived, accidently turned the other pump (Swuste et al. 2017).  Even after the first explosion the management was reluctant to shut down the operation.

The most important risk management feature of the oil and gas industry would have been to impart sufficient emergency response training to the employees, to create awareness amongst them about the potential danger involved. Since the likelihood of any major explosion is remarkably high in case of an oil and gas industry, the employees should have been trained well, to develop their understanding of the steps to be taken to prevent explosion (Christou and Konstantinidou 2012). In case of the Piper Alpha disaster, during the 1988, the gas compression module was undergone replacement, and accordingly had the employees been sufficiently trained, they would have realized the risks involved in continuing the oil production, and would have stopped the operation process. However, the untrained workers continued the oil production process that ultimately resulted in the unfavourable incident (Rahman et al. 2014). There was a lack of adequate training on the use of fire equipment in case of emergency. In this business there is a high risk of fire hazard,, despite which the training aspect was neglected. If only the workers were trained they would not have set the fire water system on the manual. It was not the proper way of starting in such hazard (Paterson 2011).

Talking about the design system, it greatly reduced the operational safety but has also rendered the communication system poor. All the cable based communication was jeopardised. Installing the Remotely Operated Shutoff Valves (ROSOVs) would prevent the back flow of oil because of pressure differences. It will help the oil to go down the main oil line to shore (Lymberopoulos et al. 2016). Another important feature of the safety case regime is that it helps in enlightening the management authority regarding the potential risks involved in an industry, and entrust them greater responsibilities to combat the issue if any crisis emerges in future (Shallcross 2013). As far as the Piper Alpha disaster is concerned, there is no point denying the fact that apart from procedural failure and design failure, management failure also had a large role to play. Although the Piper Alpha was undergoing major transformation and upgrade at this time, normal operations were not being halted, and had the production been shut down, through management intervention, the blind flange plate would never have gone unnoticed. The safety case regime would have worked if some of the activities before the event would not have been initiated or may be notified to crew members of both teams.  The contactor should read the permit first and the shift manger too did not explain the permit. The night crew would have been saved if the management played its role well. Thus, there was a need of eliminating the redundancies in the communication system (Hull 2013). .Furthermore, it is equally important to note that the management exhibited its callousness by not upgrading to blast walls, and despite repeated safety reports going against the gas lines, they were never being reinforced. The core feature of the safety case regime is to raise awareness amongst the managers regarding the level of risks assessed, helping them to address the risks in a more holistic way (Hull 2013).

Importance of emergency response training in the oil and gas industry

Auditing and regular inspection is also the key feature of the safety case regime. There is lack of sufficient inspection during the operation. The leakages were not detected due to poor inspection of the assembly work (Paik and Czujko 2011). Regular auditing would have helped detect the leakage earlier. Regular auditing and inspection would have led to early establishment of gas detectors in place, which could have protected fire. Without auditing, it is difficult to identify the deficiency in the system designs such as lack of automatic fire protection on detection of gas leakage and absence of automatic trip functions. It was found that the system lacks the feedback process. It fails to understand the effects on the safety of operations.  The quality and operational design inspector on regular infections would have observed the bad location of the radio room, and inadequate refugee system. Regular inspections would have highlighted the improper structure design which was the source of lead difficulty (Broadribb 2015).

There were several recommendations made for changes to North Sea safety procedures. After this tragedy several improvements were observed such as North Sea safety shifting from the Department of Energy to the Health and Safety Executive. There was automatic shut down of valves installed. These valves were mandatory on rigs to reduce fuel and starve the fire (Ellul 2014).   

Conclusion

The explosion occurred 23 years ago and more than 200 people lost their life. The cost of the explosion sums upto billions of dollars. It massively hit the company’s property and spoil of reputation. The explosion due to massive fire was popular as most tragic “oil and gas” accident. It was clearly a preventable human resource management error. It cannot be called a God’s wrath or his unpredictable act. It is simply an accumulation of error and the decision made by the management team is undoubtedly questionable.   Based on the literature review, analysis and the above discussion the explosion in the Piper Alpha is rooted in the company’s culture, management, design and structure. The event may is also rooted in the procedures of Occidental Petroleum. Some of this procedure comprise of the large part of the oil and gas industries. Focusing solely on the production and the related situation was the heart of the problem. This kind of philosophy is inappropriate for the personnel’s experience. The initial leak in the Piper Alpha was clearly due to poor maintenance procedures, inexperience, and deficient learning mechanisms. It is recommended that the safety measures discussed above in regards to management and human resources, design and process, safety and health to be followed and implemented sincerely.  Strictly adhering to the country’s Occupational and safely health guiltiness will prevent such tragedy in future.  It is also recommended to follow the Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 1992 adopted after the tragedy.  

References

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Broadribb, M.P., 2015. What have we really learned? Twenty five years after Piper Alpha. Process Safety Progress, 34(1), pp.16-23.

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Ellul, I.R., 2014, May. The Piper Alpha Disaster-A Forensic Pipeline Simulation Study. In PSIG Annual Meeting. Pipeline Simulation Interest Group.

Eloff, J. and Bella, M.B., 2018. Near-Miss Analysis: An Overview. In Software Failure Investigation (pp. 25-37). Springer, Cham.

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Lymberopoulos, D. and Matthews, B.R., Safoco, Inc., 2016. Safety valve control system and method of use. U.S. Patent 9,441,453.

Okoh, P. and Haugen, S., 2014. Application of inherent safety to maintenance-related major accident prevention on offshore installations. CHEMICAL ENGINEERING, 36.

Paik, J.K. and Czujko, J., 2011. Assessment of hydrocarbon explosion and fire risks in offshore installations: recent advances and future trends. The IES Journal Part A: Civil & Structural Engineering, 4(3), pp.167-179.

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Swuste, P., Groeneweg, J., Van Gulijk, C., Zwaard, W. and Lemkowitz, S., 2017. Safety management systems from Three Mile Island to Piper Alpha, a review in English and Dutch literature for the period 1979 to 1988. Safety Science.