I. Background about Piper Alpha II. General Purpose of the platform operation III. The happening Event Timeline IV. Cause and Effect of the disaster V. Key Failures VI. Improvement and prevention VII. Conclusion

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Report Title: Cloud Computing Risk Assessment
Name: Ahmad Ali Taweel
Lecturer: Ali Jaber
Date: 02/02/2018

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Table Page
I. Background about Piper Alpha 3
II. General Purpose of the platform operation 4
III. The happening Event Timeline 8
IV. Cause and Effect of the disaster 10
V. Key Failures 11
VI. Improvement and prevention 13
VII. Conclusion 15

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I. Background about Piper Alpha
In 1972, a joint venture of 4 companies, including Texaco, began searching
for oil and gas under the North Sea. The Piper Field was discovered in
January 1973 by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Ltd subsidiaries of
Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy). Oxy is a California based company
in oil and gas exploration and production with operations in the few countries.
It was founded in 1920.
The Piper Alpha Oil Rig was constructed in two sections by McDermott
Engineering of Ardersier and UIE of Cherbourg in 1975 and began production
in 1976.
On July 6th 1988, an explosion and subsequent inferno on the
Piper Alpha platform, operated by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Ltd in
the UK North Sea, sacrificed 167 peoples life in now remains the world's
most deadly offshore disaster. According to the official investigation
report written by Lord Cullen, it was the failures of company’s management
on safety on the Piper Alpha Platform.

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II. General Purpose of the platform operation
Figure 1: Piper Alpha field location
The Piper Alpha offshore platform was located in the British sector of the
North Sea oil field approximately 120 miles from Aberdeen Scotland (Figure
1). It is the major Northern Sea Oil and Gas for drilling and production that
time.

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Figure 2: Piper Alpha Platform before engulfed in a
catastrophic fire
The platform began production in 1976 at first as an oil platform and then.
In 1978 Piper Alpha was modified to process and export the natural gas that
accompanied the oil streams to comply with UK gas conservation requirements.
It was accounted for around ten per cent of the oil and gas production from
the North Sea at that time. By the year 1988, the oil platform that had once
been the world’s single largest oil producer was starting to show its age
produced 317, 000 barrels of oil every day.

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Figure 3: The Piper Field of oil and gas extraction and processing
The Tartan and Claymore platforms were installed after Piper Alpha's
completion.[11]
These two platforms also produced oil and gas. The platform
belonged to oil and gas production area consisting of the fields Piper, Claymore
and Tartan where each with its own platform (Figure 3). The Flotta oil
terminal in the Orkney Islands will receive and process oil in these fields. There
were one 0.762 meters in diameter of main oil pipeline which ran 127 miles (205
km) from Piper Alpha platform to Flotta terminal, with a short oil pipeline from
the Claymore platform joining it some 21.5 miles (34.6 kilometers) to the
west. The Tartan field also fed oil to Claymore and then onto the main line to
Flotta. Piper Alpha processed its own gas, but also connected Tartan's and
Claymore's gas lines to the MCP-01 compression platform for processing. As we
can see the platform actually acted as a hub for importing and exporting oil and
gas operated by 226 workmen who lived and worked on the platform and at the
same time running production of the platform.

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Figure 4 Piper Alpha platforms
Piper Alpha platform generally can be divided into Module A, Module B,
Module C and Module D. Module D involves production and generation of
oil and gas. Module C and B are compression and separation of gas while
Module A was the Wellheads of the Platform.

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III. The happening Event Timeline
12 noon - 6:00 PM: The safety valve on pump A was removed for maintenance. The
maintenance isn’t completed till 6:00 pm, so the safety was replaced with a hand
tightened temporary blind flange. The supervisor wasn’t informed of the temporary
flange replacement. A permit to work on the safety valve is filed and left at the
pump, stating that Pump A is not ready for operation.
9:45 PM: The pump B fails due to hydrate buildup. The crew begins searching for
the permit for pump A. The blind flange is located behind other equipment, making a
visual check of the pump difficult.
9:55 PM: The engineer found the permit to work for unstarted routine maintenance
in pump A, and assumed it was operational. Pump A is started on the lead Engineer's
authority, as the crew is unaware of the blind flange replacement. Gas immediately
begins leaking from the site of the removed safety valve, causing an explosion before
the crew can react. The firewalls around the gas compression module collapse,
damaging the control and radio rooms. The fire spreading through the firewalls ignite
a small condensate pipe ruptured by the initial explosion.
10:04 PM: The platform workers evacuate the control room. An oil fire breaks out
on the rig. Emergency production shutdown is activated, but back-pressure from the
connected Tartan and Claymore platforms supplies more oil to the fire. The
firefighting system, set to manual activation and located in the control room, is
inaccessible. The crew received no evacuation orders so they gathered in the
accommodation deck and awaits instructions.
10:20 PM: The gas pipeline connecting Tartan to Piper Alpha bursts from the heat
of the oil fire, leaking up to 33 tons of gas per second and causing an explosion and
high-pressure gas fire.
10:30 PM: The purpose-built safety vessel Tharos attempts to assist Piper Alpha. It
was too powerful to use near crew members. They extended their gangway to third
of the distance to Piper Alpha in 20 minutes, but their cannon were flooded and they
need 10 minutes to restart. Helicopter was impossible to use because of the wind,

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smoke and flames. This forced the personnel to jump of the 175 feet platform,
directly disobeying emergency procedure.
10:50 PM: The gas line from MCP-01 burst, driving the Tharos away from the
platform due to the extreme heat. The heat is so extreme that the rig and even
portions of the Tharos begin melting.
11:20 PM: The final gas pipeline burst, and the fireproof accommodation block to
which most of the crew had retreated falls into the sea. The rest of the platform
continued falling apart until about 12:45 am on July 7.

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IV. Cause and Effect of the disaster
Cause of the disaster
The accident was primarily caused by maintenance work simultaneously carried
out on one of the high-pressure condensate pumps and a safety valve, which
led to a leak in condensates.
After the removal of one of the gas condensate pump’s pressure safety valve
for maintenance, the condensate pipe remained temporarily sealed with a blind
flange as the work was not completed during the day shift. A night crew
turned on the alternate pump, without being aware that the maintenance being
carried out on one of the pumps wasn’t done yet. Following this, the blind
flange firewalls failed to handle the pressure, leading to several explosions.
The fire at the platform intensified due to the failure in closing the flow of
gas from the Tartan Platform. The automatic firefighting system had
remained deactivated since divers worked underwater before the incident.
Helicopter operations were hampered due to the amount of heat and smoke.
Effects of the accident
The most invaluable prices as the consequences of the accident were
life of 165 workmen (out of 226) on board and 2 men from the
fast rescue boat. Around 70% peoples on the platform dead resulted
from the tragic accident. According to the Cullen’s report, there was
US$ 3.4 billion cost in property damage and around 100 kg of
hydrocarbons loss which containment to the marine but it only insured
around US$ 1.4 billion by the Insurers Lloyd of London. Some of the
survivors were badly injured and loss parts of their body.

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V. Key Failures
Design Failures
1. Firewalls between modules not upgraded to blast proof tilesː
• When Piper Alpha was converted from an oil producing rig to an oil,
natural gas, and liquid propane gas (LPG), the fire barriers between
modules were not upgraded. The installed tiles were suitable for a
crude oil fire, but were not intended to withstand gas explosions.
When the initial explosion occurred in module C, the tiles acted as
shrapnel and caused damage to modules B and D.
2. Control room adjacent to gas compression moduleː
3. Primary supply lines from other oil rigs permitted backflowː
4. Tharos rescue vessel design flawsː
 Evacuation gangwayː
 Fire pump issuesː
 Fire pumps too powerful for personnelː
Management Failures
1. Normal operation during major construction, maintenance, and upgrades
• The Piper Alpha was undergoing multiple improvement and maintenance
projects. The original plan was to shut down production, but the rig continued
operation. This led to the confusion where multiple maintenance projects were
occurring simultaneously, and the blind flange plate was left unnoticed.
.
2. Oil feeds from Tartan and Claymore weren’t shut off until too lateː
• Supervisors noticed the fire on Piper Alpha but didn’t know how much damage
so they could give order to stop the pumping to piper alpha platform and they
didn’t know if they have the authority to do so.

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Procedural Failures
1. Engineer neglected to inform on-duty custodian of Pump A’s conditionː
 The head engineer did not inform the custodian that the safety valve had been
removed from Pump A which if he did know that the system was in an unusable
state; he would not have tried to start the system without fixing it.
.
2. Firefighting system was set to manualː
 The firefighting system, set to manual activation and located in the control room,
is inaccessible. This firefighting system was always set to manual when divers
were in the water, an unnecessary step taken, as the water intake was only a
threat to divers when they were in close range. The crew has no way to fight the
fire.
.
3. Evacuation protocols broke downː
 The radio and control room were not functional and/or inaccessible during the
disaster. So no personnel were alarmed.
.

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VI. Improvement and prevention
Any accident can happen in anywhere at any time. It can happen, has
happened can be happen again. We cannot be too easily satisfied on any
whatever we have. We may not predict precisely when the accident will be
happen but we can minimize the risk and avoid any accident to be happen.
An accident is started from decisions which lead to the actions. As
discussed earlier, a tragic accidents start from basic events which
resulted from our actions. So, we are one who the making the decisions,
actions and control the output.
1. Management and Human Resources
 Any recruitment of new workers shall be exposing to the
safety training and emergency response training.
 Platform managers must be train on how to respond to
emergencies on other platforms and give order to the workmen
on the board.
 Practice of Permit to Work (PTW) system must be put on high
priority with regular audit and review of the system to make
sure it is being used and is effective.
 All workers must been Training in use of the Short Messaging
System (SMS) and training in understanding the risks of the
operation.

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2. Design and Process
 Use tools such as QRA and ALARP to understand the risks and
hazards
 Segregation of hazardous areas from control rooms and
accommodations, use of firewalls, blast walls, protected
control rooms and muster areas
 Active and passive fire protection systems
 Riser ESDVs properly positioned and protected
 A variety of evacuation and escape systems. Must be more than
one route.
 Temporary Safe Refuge (TSR) to Prevent smoke ingress.
 Provide secondary escape equipment’s e.g. : ropes, ladders &
nets
3. Safety and Health
 Provide annual safety training. All new recruitment or
existing employee must be exposed on emergency response
training either twice or once a year.
 Regularly auditing and inspection on safety and health in
the working places.
 Enforcement of law in workers Safety and Health.

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VII. Conclusion
Piper Alpha is the most tragic gas and oil accident ever happened. It
caused l i fe of 167 peoples and cost billions of dollars in properties
damages. It was caused by a massive fire, which was result of errors and
questionable decisions. It can happen, has happened and can happen again.
The maintenance error that eventually led to the initial leak was the
result of inexperience, poor maintenance procedures, and deficient
learning mechanisms. Other than that, the system had been made
without sufficient feedback and understanding of their effects on the
safety of operations. The improper structural design was then lead
difficulty if the worker to save their own life.
We hope any companies’ management will not aim to save more money
by having understaffed facilities and less experienced operators. With
these condition operators are unable to focus specifically on accident
prevention. It was the companies’ responsibilities to subject their
employees to safety training and emergency response training so they can
be always prepared for any accident or unwanted events.