PIPER ALPHA 30 YEARS ON

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2018 :: RMTnews 10 July 6, 2018 marks the 30th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster which claimed the lives of 165 offshore workers and two seafarers. The explosion in 1988 that triggered the Piper Alpha disaster was due to gas leaking from a pipe that had been inadequately closed off following maintenance work. To mark the anniversary, the director of the Health and Safety Executive’s energy division Chris Flint has written to all offshore oil and gas production operators in the North Sea to demand more action on preventing the accidental release of oil or gas. Last year, ConocoPhillips, one of the world’s largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies, was fined £3m after gas leaks on a gas platform off the Lincolnshire coast put workers’ lives in danger. Another major release in the North Sea occurred on Total’s offshore Elgin platform in 2012, resulting in a fine of £1.125m in December 2015. The HSE says that, although progress has been made in reducing the number of hydrocarbon releases (HCRs), they continue to occur, and that more should be done to tackle them. The letter requires operators to complete a self-assessment on HCR risks, then relay these to the HSE by 20 July 2018, together with a summary of their improvement plans and actions. "HCRs remain a concern, particularly major HCRs because of their greater potential to lead to fires, explosions and multiple losses of life. There have been several such releases in recent years that have come perilously close to disaster" Mr Flint said that every HCR was a safety threat, as it represented a failure in an operator’s management of its risks. “HCRs remain a concern, particularly major HCRs because of their greater potential to lead to fires, explosions and multiple losses of life. “There have been several such releases in recent years that have come perilously close to disaster,” he said. He said that operators should learn from incidents across the process industries, both onshore and offshore, to identify where improvements can be made. “Experience from our investigations is that HCRs typically happen because there have been failings across the board. “Poor plant condition and breaches of procedures are often immediate causes, but beneath that we often find a lack of leadership, a poor safety culture, and evidence that weaknesses have existed for some time, but haven’t been picked up through audit, assurance and review and then dealt with,” he said. The letter references revised HSE guidance on inspecting for loss of containment, and a new HCR prevention document produced by the Step Change in Safety organisation, set up to improve safety in 1997. “If you get the safety culture right, staff will be much more likely to spot hazards, challenge when standards aren’t right, and be engaged in improvement. “And if you have an effective system of monitoring and audit in place, leadership will know which systems need fixing, and can target their efforts to prevent the incidents occurring in the first place,” he said. The self-assessment should include a review of their “process safety leadership”, and auditing their safety management systems against the recognised process safety management standard. The HSE has committed to feeding back significant findings to the industry later in the year. RMT general secretary Mick Cash welcomed the intervention by HSE at a time when the pressure on the off shore workforce is immense in terms of cuts, increased workload and increased working hours. "We have come close on a few occasions and it's often been luck as opposed to good management that a disaster was avoided. "It is appropriate that HSE should issue a statement in the terms they have as it will help to focus minds and remind everyone they must remain vigilant,” he said. PIPER ALPHA 30 YEARS ON HSE demands more action to prevent the release of oil or gas in the North Sea