Intoduction for Piper Alpha Disaster

INTRODUCTION

Lot of major disaster happened in the chemical industries over the world such as tank explosion in Thailand, released poisonous material to environment like happened in Bhopal, India and etc. The disaster caused the company experienced to the big losses such as the human life and also the product that have been damaged due to the disaster. Every drop of the product is money. So then, safety and health must be the first thing to be concern to avoid from the unwanted dangerous situation happen. From the research, most of the failure is from the human. They sometime feeling over confident and take things for granted such as, they would not follow the procedures and the regulations before start working. This action can cause the big damage to the plant and will be harm to their self and also to the people that live nearby to the plant.

One of the big disasters that have been happened is Piper Alpha Fire and Explosion. Piper Alpha was a North Sea oil production platform operated by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Ltd. The Piper Alpha's platform began production in year 1976, at first the plat as an oil platform and then later converted to gas production. An explosion and the resulting oil and gas fires destroyed it on 6 July 1988, killing 167 men, with only 61 survivors. The death toll includes two crewmen of a rescue vessel. Total insured loss was about £1.7 billion (US$3.4 billion). At the time of the disaster, the platform accounted for approximately ten percent of North Sea oil and gas production, and was the worst offshore oil disaster in terms of lives lost and industry impact.

A large fixed platform, Piper Alpha was situated on the Piper oilfield, approximately 120 miles (193 km) northeast of Aberdeen in 474 feet (144 m) of water, and comprised four modules separated by firewalls. The platform was constructed by McDermott Engineering at Ardersier and UIE at Cherbourg, with the sections united at Ardersier before tow out during 1975, with production commencing in late 1976. For safety reasons the modules were organized so that the most dangerous operations were distant from the personnel areas. The conversion from oil to gas broke this safety concept, with the result that sensitive areas were brought together, for example, the gas compression next to the control room, which played a role in the accident. It produced crude oil and natural gas from 24 wells for delivery to the Flotta oil terminal on Orkney and to other installations by three separate pipelines. It has been said that at the time of the disaster, Piper was one of the heaviest platforms (along with Magnus and Brae B) operating in the North Sea.

THE ROOT CAUSE

The disaster happened caused by the workers on the Piper Alpha have removed the pressure safety valve (PSV) for maintenance. The technicians that removed the valve to the pipe work

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