What kind of rig was Piper Alpha?
What kind of rig was Piper Alpha?
A large fixed platform, Piper Alpha sat atop Piper oilfield, approximately 120 miles (190 km) north east of Aberdeen in 474 feet (144 m) of water. It was built in four modules separated by firewalls.
What happened to the Piper Alpha platform?
Piper Alpha was an oil production platform in the North Sea operated by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Limited. An explosion and resulting oil and gas fires destroyed the platform, killing 167 people, including two crewmen of a rescue vessel.
What is the name of the rig in deepwater horizon?
Deepwater Horizon
| Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible drilling rig. | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| Name | Deepwater Horizon |
| Owner | Transocean’s Triton Asset Leasing |
| Operator | Transocean |
What caused the giant Piper Alpha oil rig explosion?
What caused Piper Alpha disaster? The primary cause of the accident was ruled to be maintenance work simultaneously carried out on one of the high-pressure condensate pumps and a safety valve, which led to a leak in condensates.
How many people died on Piper Alpha oil rig?
167 people
The 1988 Piper Alpha disaster killed 167 people, making it the world’s deadliest oil rig accident in history. Situated just off the coast of Aberdeen, a city famous for its oil rigs and production, the oil platform exploded on July 6 1988.
Is Piper Alpha still there?
The remains of Piper Alpha were toppled into the sea on 28 March 1989. Of the 226 people on board that night, only 61 survived. Of the deceased, 109 died from smoke inhalation, 13 by drowning, 11 of injuries including burns. In 4 cases, the cause of death could not be established, and 30 bodies were never recovered.
Who put out the Piper Alpha fire?
Red Adair: The world-famous firefighter In 1977, he and his crew were involved in capping the North Sea’s biggest oil well blowout at the Ekofisk Bravo platform in the Norwegian sector. He returned in 1988 to help put out the fire on the Piper Alpha oil platform after the explosion claimed the lives of 167 men.
Who owned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig?
Transocean
The Deepwater Horizon rig, owned and operated by offshore-oil-drilling company Transocean and leased by oil company BP, was situated in the Macondo oil prospect in the Mississippi Canyon, a valley in the continental shelf.
Is Deepwater Horizon based on Piper Alpha?
UK’S DEEPWATER HORIZON The seminal event in safety regulation of the UK North Sea was the Piper Alpha disaster over 20 years ago on the 6th July 1988. In principle, each safety case demonstrated that the company had a safety management system in place and had identified risks and reduced them to acceptably low levels.
What happened to the Piper Alpha offshore platform?
The offshore platform started producing gas in the early 1980s and had three main gas transport risers and an oil export riser before the incident, which destroyed the entire facility and caused an estimated loss of $1.4bn. The Piper Alpha disaster occurred due to gas leakage from one of the condensate pipes at the platform on 6 July 1988.
What type of drilling did Deepwater Horizon do?
Drilling operations. Deepwater Horizon worked on wells in the Atlantis (BP 56%, BHP Billiton 44%) and Thunder Horse (BP 75%, ExxonMobil 25%) oil fields. It was described at times as a “lucky” and “celebrated” rig, and in 2007 was still described as “one of the most powerful rigs in the world”.
How much oil does the Piper Alpha really produce?
At its peak in 1979, he reported, the Piper Alpha was the most productive platform in the world, producing 320,000 barrels of crude oil a day, which equated to $5 million a day.
Did Occidental push Piper Alpha to its maximum capacity?
According to Rae, Occidental pushed Piper Alpha ’s systems to their maximum capacity from the outset. A pipeline network connected the Piper Alpha to the Tartan and Claymore production platforms, to the MCP-01 gas pumping station, and to the Flotta oil terminal on the Orkney isles.
