Piper Alpha Disaster

This is the world's most severe maritime disaster, 167 people are thought to have died. This disaster was caused by the explosion and fire of British Piper Alpha platform in 1988. Disasters are caused by various factors such as human factors. However, due to this disaster, many changes have been brought to the world of safety regulation in order to improve safety in various fields. Background In 1972, four companies joined with permission necessary for exploration of the North Sea oil and natural gas.

To improve the safety of the offshore platform, the QRA was launched after a tragic accident of fire and explosion that threw many dead on the Piper Alpha platform. In a survey report on Piper Alpha's disaster, Sir Karen said QRA is a technology that provides a structured, objective and quantitative way to better understand risks and a way to overcome or control them Pointed out (Hanson et al., 1995). Overseas production facilities invest heavily to maximize production. The main production facilities can include half offshore upper platform area and half of capital or installation cost. There are about 16 types of processing equipment at the top of the offshore installation facility for handling hydrocarbons in case of equipment failure based on risk assessment - OGP (2010)

In the past few years, the use of risk assessment at overseas production facilities has steadily increased. Especially after the disaster of Piper Alpha in 1988 and many other serious accidents, many dead people came out. By examining the safety of the existing upper production facility, business operators are increasingly aware of this. The Piper Alpha incident provided a disadvantageous confirmation that risk analysis and forecasting of serious accidents must be prudent. Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) is extremely helpful in reducing risks, especially hydrocarbon emissions from offshore facilities. (Harmony, 1998)

The impact of Piper Alpha's disaster on the oil industry is very big. This is an unprecedented level and all oil companies absolutely want to record as case studies. The purpose of this study was to separate the defects and errors caused by Western oil companies and Piper Alpha crews that led to direct disasters. This report describes several topics related to the Piper Alpha offshore production platform, including its location, structure, change, safety matrix, record, and disaster schedule and its impact. Throughout the report, we did not include field surveys in the Piper field.