A Brief History of: The Piper Alpha Oil Rig Disaster (Short Documentary)

get started i'd like to say thank you to this video sponsor brilliant more about them later on the oil industry throughout its history has been dangerous and dirty to exploit these resources complex and expensive methods of extraction are used retrofitting of equipment incorrectly can result in safety compromises and this would result in death and destruction with a bill of nearly 1.7 billion pounds if you like what we do here at plainly difficult consider helping the channel grow by liking commenting and subscribing let's get started [Music] it's been a while since we have covered an event back in blighty but today we are looking at a disaster which left an oil rig decimated and 167 dead the event would knock a 10 dent in north sea oil production and highlight the dangers of the uk oil industry i'm going to rate this incident here on the plainly difficult disaster scale hyper alpha was an oil platform that had been constructed on the piper oil field the field was around 110 miles off the coast of scotland and covers an area of 15 miles squared a license to exploit the area was issued to occidental in 1972 after extensive surveys oil was discovered in january 1973 this newly discovered source of oil was named piper and in order to extract it a platform was needed to be constructed the platform named piper alpha was completed in 1976 after three years of construction the rig sat upon 474 feet of water and was made up of four main modules which were prefabricated on land before final assembly on site the layout of the platform meant that the dangerous processing areas were as far away as possible from the personnel areas sat atop these modules were further sections for living quarters and other production areas in 1976 the oil flow started eventually building up to around 300 000 barrels of oil per day initially only oil was used with the gas also extracted being burnt off by the platform's flare the platform provided facilities to drill wells and extract the oil as well as process the fluids to get the oil from beneath the ocean floor a combination of oil gas and saltwater brine is pumped to the platform then the gas and water are separated from the oil in production separators gas is separated off and cooled to remove the condensate liquid condensate is pumped back into the oil via two pumps named amb and a mixture travels to the shore refinery any excess gas is burnt off however this would change in 1978 when construction works to enable gas transportation to meet uk gas conservation requirements due to this excess gas was then purified and pumped off the rig in 1974 occidental started construction on an oil terminal on the orkney island flotter the site received oil from both piper and claymore oil fields this flowed through 30 inch diameter pipes with a distance of 128 miles from piper alpha the gas from piper alpha was pumped to mcp-01 a gas compression platform 34 miles away where it was mixed with gas from the frig line and was pumped back to some fergus gas from tarzan claymore fields was pumped via piper alpha to the mcp-01 the diameter and length of the pipes meant that the pressure would take significant time to reduce after an emergency stop occidental predicted that this could take up to several hours remember this for later on in the early 1980s the rig was converted to a new method of operation when its gas dehydration unit was changed for a gas conversion module part of the retrofitting of the rig meant gas compression occurred next to the control room compromising the safety concept of keeping the dangerous equipment far away from the crew areas from 1983 the rig operated in a phase two mode and this became the de facto operating environment for most of the time the rig had a total of six lifeboats 13 life rafts 500 odd life jackets 31 life boys and knotted ropes this was to help with any emergency evacuation of the maximum crew capacity of 241 persons however usually closer to 220 persons were on the platform at any one time each lifeboat could hold a maximum of 47 persons were motorized and had the ability to sail through burning oil the platform had an automatic firefighting system similar to many other oil rigs driven by both diesel and electric pumps the diesel pumps were used to suck in large amounts of seawater for fire suppression nominated pumps had an automatic control to start them in case of fire thus providing a key safety system in the event of a disaster however the automatic system could be disabled needing manual activation from the control room this mode of operation was regularly used during the summer months where divers were in the water for up to 12 hours per day for inspection and repair works during the mid to late 1980s the platform was undergoing maintenance and upgrade works as part of this occidental had highlighted the need to replace the gas conversion module these work should have led the platform to being temporarily shut down however occidental took the decision to revert the platform back to working in phase one mode essentially keeping your rig open whilst undertaking complex and demanding maintenance work the change back to phase one took place in july 1988. during early july whilst maintenance was undertaken gas smells reported by workers on the rig and on the 5th of july a temporary evacuation was initiated after a leak from the gas conversion module this leads us onto the 6th of july 1988 one of the two condensate pumps that were operating injecting condensate back into the oil had its pressure safety valve removed for routine maintenance the removal left an open condensate pipe this opening was covered by a metal plate flange which was bolted down during the day the fire suppression system was also under manual control due to divers in the water unfortunately the day shift was unable to complete the work and at 6 pm the metal flange stayed in place however it was only hand tightened down the engineer on the day shift completed a form stating that pump a was not fit for service and should not be switched on when the day's shift ended the form with the information about the out-of-use pump was not given to the knight foreman and was instead left in the control room as we see often in these types of disasters improper handover between shifts causes confusion and vital information is not passed along unsurprisingly the form went missing in the busy control room environment meaning no one was aware of the status of pump a now here's some words about today's sponsor brilliant if like me you feel that your brain needs a kickstart from all the inactivity of being cooped up inside the hellscape that has been 2020 then brilliant could be what you need in order to get your brain back into gear brilliant helps you build up problem solving and critical thinking skills running at your pace your rules brilliant helps you keep your brain the sharpest knife in the draw this is done through fascinating smart and stimulating quizzes not just that but as a person who enjoys learning about the technicals of how things work some of brilliant other courses help you learn about new subjects for example learning about how solar energy works or even this course about artificial neural networks and how they learn by detecting patterns in huge amounts of information which will eventually take over the world and become our ai overlords i especially enjoyed that one all of these courses including this one are made by experts in their field if this interests you and guessing if you're a regular watcher playing difficult when you probably will be the first 200 people to subscribe using my url link www.brilliant.org playing difficult will get twenty percent off a yearly subscription the condensate system has started to cause issues with the build up of methane clathrate this flammable ice tripped out pump b the operators could not restart the failed pump the control room staff looked around for any information on the status of pump a but could not find any correct paperwork the safety valves for pumps a and b were in different locations and because of this paperwork for each part was kept separately leading to further confusion the missing valve was not noticeable due to the metal disk replacing the safety valve being obscured by machinery and a few meters above eye level without any paperwork to say the country pump a was started at 9 55 pm gas flowed through the pump and created an overpressure which could not be held back by the hand tightened panel gas could be heard gushing from the opening and alarms were triggered on the platform however before anyone could react the inevitable happened and the fumes ignited the explosion blew down the firewall to the control room and the emergency stop button was pushed cutting off oil and gas flow due to the original use of the platform the firewalls were not blast resistant and because of this the first explosion had ruptured other pipes causing further fires the explosion left the control room severely damaged and this would mean effective control on fighting of the fire couldn't be initiated as the platform relied on an intact control room just after 10 pm a mayday call was sent out and the control room was abandoned standard procedures would be for the crew to make their way to the lifeboats how the uncontrolled fire stopped this one happening many crew members moved to the fireproof accommodation block beneath the helicopter deck to await further instructions however the fire and resulting smoke stopped any helipad usage and a deadly fumes started to permeate into the accommodation block due to the automatic fire suppression system being set to manual mode and the now disabled control room no way of stopping the flames was available apart from physically going to the diesel pumps to start them manually some crew members attempted to do this however they did not return and the system was not started up the fire was added to by the platforms of tartan and claymore which carried on pumping oil and gas to piper which escaped at the ruptured pipes from the first explosion the tartan and claymore platforms had not received any order from occidental management to cease pumping even when the mayday call had been sent from piper at 10 05 pm the mayday call was received and a hawker sydney nimrod from raf kinlos was dispatched to piper to act as on-scene commander and rescue 0-1 raf lossy mouth dispatched a seeking helicopter to assist at 10 20 pm tartan's gas pipe melted on piper releasing around 15 to 30 tons of high pressure gas every second intensifying the fire and causing a second explosion the fire fighting and rescue vessel transocean marianas then called the pharos pulled alongside the stricken platform at around half 10 and attempted to fight the blaze however its hoses were too powerful for use near personnel on the rig 20 minutes later the riser to the mcp-01 ruptured exploding sending huge flames 300 feet into the air this forced the pharos to move away from the rig reducing its rescue efforts the explosion killed two crew and six piper alpha crew on a fast rescue boat from the standby vessel sand haven any survivors left aboard piper alpha sought refuge in the remains of the accommodation area and the helipad many leaped into the sea in a desperate effort to reach safety the pipeline from claymore to piper finally ruptured further exploding the platform at 11 50 pm the platform's vital structure sections had failed causing upper regions to collapse in on itself the fireproofed accommodation block fell into the sea taking the crew members inside with it within almost an hour all of the structure had slipped beneath the waves in the light of day the only thing that was left was a burning module a 167 lives were lost and only 61 of the piper alfa's crew survived the tragic loss of such a large number of people is a result of several failings however they can all be traced back to alpha's history of being retrofitted for gas operations compromising the safety of the control room disaster was inevitable with the first fire and explosion as anyone with the authority to initiate an evacuation of the platform was killed when the control room was destroyed the literal fuel on the fire came in the form of tartan and claymore whose operations control crews did not halt the flow of gas and oil to piper they believed that they did not have the authority even though they could see piper on fire in the distance the remains of piper burnt on for another three weeks until a team led by red adair finally extinguished a fire officially marking the end of the disaster later on in 1988 one of the sections that many crew members had sought covering was recovered from the seabed and 87 bodies were still within the honorable lord cullen launched an investigation into the disaster in 1988 and would be presented to parliament in 1990 the report offered 106 recommendations to north sea oil operations after investigation all of which were accepted by the industry as a result of the inquiry the health and safety executive took over a responsibility for north sea safety replacing the uk department of energy's obligation which at the time was operating with a conflict of interest being in charge of both production and safety although the cullen inquiry found occidental guilty of poor maintenance and safety procedures no criminal charges were put to the company this would ultimately lead to the offshore installation safety case regulations of 1992 the disaster was the largest man made of its time and was one of the worst offshore disasters in terms of lives lost i'd like to thank brilliant for sponsoring this video sponsors like this really help keep the lights on here at plainly difficult hq so don't forget if you'd like to check out brilliant use this link www.brilliant.org difficult for the first 200 people to get 20 off an annual subscription thank you for watching i hope 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Channel: Plainly Difficult

Views: 365,296

Keywords: Atomic, Nuclear History, Education, Plainly Difficult, Piper alpha disaster, Oil rig disaster, Bp horizon, Oil spill, Industrial disaster, North Sea oil, Deep, water horizon, Deepwater horizon spill, Qxir, Piper alpha oil rig explosion, oxy, occidental, seconds from disaster

Id: Lv_aJEMUWNk

Length: 15min 13sec (913 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 03 2020