| On July 6, 1988, there was a massive explosion on the Piper Alpha oil and gas production platform. A gas processor had exploded and set off a chain reaction which destroyed the platform and killed 167 men. We have just passed the 15th anniversary of, what turned out to be, the world’s worst offshore oil and gas industry disaster. I think it is appropriate to take a little time to reflect on the background of the Piper Alpha and what caused an accident
which had such devastating effects.
The extraction of oil and gas is a very dangerous industry. Between 1980 and 2001, there were a total of 1377 serious injuries and fatalities. 376 deaths, including the Piper victims, and 104 killed in helicopter incidents. So far this year there has been one death; an oil worker who died on an Ensco rig
working in Morecambe Bay.
In 1988, I was a young and very raw Member of Parliament, with a constituency in Aberdeen, the "Energy Capital of Europe". I was very familiar with the safety problems in the oil and gas industry.
Long before I had ever heard of the Piper Alpha, I had seen the consequences of these problems at first hand. Prior to my election as an MP, I was a solicitor practicing in the North East of Scotland. I dealt with many personal injury cases arising out of work
offshore. The injuries themselves weren’t very different from the sort that most lawyers are used to from any industrial environment.
What was different was an apparent lack of any safety culture offshore. I heard time after time of a working environment that was pressured; where tight deadlines were imposed; where risks were taken constantly; where access to proper medical facilities
was limited. There was a frontier mentality where huge investment in platform construction and infrastructure meant that the race to begin and then maintain production was intense.
I regularly had discussions with insurance companies about the appalling tales I had been told. I remember one particular discussion. My client had been working on a drill floor and had been badly burned by acid. He was taken for a shower and then to his bunk. The drilling didn‘t stop and the Offshore Installation Manager refused to arrange for a helicopter to take him ashore for medical treatment. He
had to wait till the next scheduled flight. When I asked the insurance company representative why there was no pressure on the industry to improve its safety, he was quite blunt: "They don’t want anything to interfere with production. They will pay the higher
premiums, it’s much cheaper for them".
That cynical view suggests that all of the many injuries and fatalities that occurred in those early years were simply accepted by the industry, as inevitable. Of course, if Government had been more vigilant then things might have been different.
Safety inspections were carried out by officials of the Department of Energy. Then, months before the tragedy, a Mr Sutherland was killed on the Piper Alpha platform. That meant an inspection on the platform into
the causes of his death. At the end of June 1988, there was another inspection. In both inspections there were apparently a few points which the inspector noticed. He missed, or ignored, all of the serious problems that led to the disaster. Lord Cullen, who was appointed to
lead the Inquiry into the disaster, said in his report at
para 15.48:-
"Even after making allowances for the fact that the inspection in June 1988 proceeded on the basis of sampling, it is clear to me that it was superficial to the point of being of little use as a test of safety on the platform. It did not reveal any
of the clear cut and readily ascertainable deficiencies."
What Lord Cullen said about that inspection on the Piper Alpha could have been said about any number of offshore platforms. There was no effective control of safety standards offshore.
I firmly believe that if the accident had not happened on the Piper Alpha, it would have happened somewhere else.
The substantial change, improvement and investment in health and safety that the industry so desperately needed, was forced on it by the scale and impact of the Piper Alpha disaster. It was also the first major event to expose the weakness in the industry‘s approach to Government.
Basically, the industry’s view was that so long as it was close to Government, that Government approved of what it was doing, or at least was prepared to turn a blind eye, then everything was OK. That showed that the policy of engaging with Government was working and delivering for the industry. The fact
that the approach to health and safety was fundamentally wrong; that operators were taking massive, and potentially, very expensive risks in pursuing these policies, never seemed to occur to anyone in industry or government.
There are many reasons why the Piper Alpha disaster happened. Lord Cullen’s analysis in the inquiry which followed the disaster picked up most of them but steered clear of some of the more controversial.
For example, the immense economic pressure on oil operators at that time and the culture which existed in the offshore industry. The North Sea was a new oil province. The cost of exploiting our oil and gas resources was enormous. The Piper Alpha platform alone cost over a billion dollars. There was an enormous
pressure to recover the financial outlay.
The Government was also under pressure as well. In the financial year, 1988-89 - when the Piper Alpha exploded, a total of £3.6 billion was paid to the exchequer by way of oil taxation and gas levy. Just a couple of years previously, the exchequer received over £12 billion. The take was low in 1988 because
of a collapse in the oil price. There were many who thought that the price collapse contributed to the disaster.
Neither the oil industry nor the government had any incentive to pay proper attention to safety offshore. There was a frontier mentality. Employment in the offshore oil and gas industry was like no other employment in the United Kingdom.
All of Lord Cullen’s recommendations were implemented. In particular, health and safety was transferred from the Department of Energy to the Health and Safety Executive, and a new offshore safety division was established. Every installation was required to produce a safety plan. These plans were based on a
goal-setting approach with proper risk assessment and involvement of the workforce. Lord Cullen’s findings fundamentally changed the approach to health and safety offshore. They also had a major impact in every other area of health and safety in the UK and in other parts of the world.
There is no doubt that Lord Cullen’s recommendations have led to huge improvements in safety offshore. But it is not perfect. There are still serious accidents and deaths. On available figures between the Piper Alpha disaster and 2001, there were 68 deaths offshore, 31 of these were in helicopter
accidents. There have been a combined total of 780 deaths and serious injuries offshore. These figures are still far too high.
Since the election of the Labour Government in 1997, there have been further changes. The Government established the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry Task Force (now known as Pilot) to act as a focus for Government industry cooperation on developing and improving the industry. One of its major areas of
concern is safety offshore and in 1997 The Step Change safety strategy was launched.
But, for many people involved in the disaster and its aftermath. There is still one major piece if unfinished business.
In the late eighties, the Piper Alpha was just one of a number of major public disasters. It is difficult now to imagine just how dangerous life seemed in those days with a succession of tragedies including the Chinook helicopter crash, the Zeebrugge ferry, the sinking of the Marchioness, the Cormorant
helicopter crash and the Clapham rail disaster.
This string of disasters brought pressure for a reform of the law covering the responsibility of company directors. In 1996, under a Tory Government, The Law Commission in England and Wales brought forward its proposals for a law on corporate killing. The Labour Party manifesto for the 1997 election included a
commitment to bring in such a law.
That pledge was repeated in 2001 but the law is still not with us. David Blunkett has announced that there will be a consultation on a firm proposal, but there is still no idea of a timetable for legislation.
It has been assumed that one of the reasons for the delay has been pressure from the civil service to ensure that some mechanism is found to exclude the public sector from liability. A close examination of the Piper Alpha disaster will show very quickly why they are worried.
There was clearly neglect on the part of Occidental, the American oil company which operated the Piper Alpha. But every aspect of their completely inadequate safety system, had been inspected regularly by Department of Energy inspectors as well as Department of Transport Inspectors (for the Marine Safety
equipment, and approved.
If the company was at fault, then weren’t the two Departments also at fault. And didn’t the inspectors who did the day-to-day inspections follow departmental policy, and who set that policy? Ask these questions right up the line and we are in the highest reaches of Government.
All I know is that when I had regular contact with the relative and survivors of the Piper Alpha disaster and through them with the relatives of other disaster victims such as the Zeebrugge families, I never had any doubt about what these people wanted.
They wanted a law which would stop these accidents happening by bringing responsibility directly to the door of those people who were responsible for the. policies which shaped safety systems. They wanted to ensure that other families didn’t have to go through what they have gone through.
And they are right! There could no more fitting memorial, not just to the victims of the Piper Alpha disaster, but to all these other victims who have died needlessly because of the greed or the pennypinching on safety by companies and their directors.
Legislation please, and quickly, Mr Blunkett!
Frank Doran MP
Aberdeen Central |
