It’s hard to believe that the Piper Alpha tragedy was 30 years ago and some of our staff weren’t even born at the time or were just children.
The disaster killed 167 workers and remains the world’s deadliest oil rig accident.
Lord Cullen’s report became the driver for regulation reform under the Prevention of Fire and Explosion, and Emergency Response Regulations. This required that those with a duty of care, provide evidence that management systems identify hazards, evaluate risk and put in place measures to demonstrate risk is as low as reasonably practicable.
Most oil and gas companies operating in the UK are global, and thus the reach of reform brought about change to the whole industry and is rightly held as the beacon of how things should be done.
In 2018, there remain many challenges facing the industry.
When the incident happened, Piper Alpha had been operational for just 11 years with corrosion and marine detritus a problem impacting system effectiveness back then.
Today, most of the larger assets that are of a similar age to Piper Alpha still face the same challenges, but a growing number are entering a fifth decade of continuous operation, well beyond the design life.
As we strive to maximise the economic recovery, a real threat to asset integrity remains.
Offshore deluge systems are still wet-tested by passing seawater through the system, spraying the plant and equipment, exacerbating blockage problems and accelerating the effects of corrosion.
Wet-testing can cause the drains caissons to become overwhelmed with the water volume, resulting in oil fractions being carried into the water outlet, causing water sheening downstream of the asset.
The water can also get into electrical equipment and plant alarms and can cause corrosion under insulation of piping. There is also an impact on the plant process associated with the thermal shock and rapid cooling of high pressure, high temperature equipment. It’s also very time consuming preparing an area for testing.
In response, Blaze has developed Vapo-Flo, a non-toxic smoke generating system that uses an oil-based vapour instead of water to check for deluge nozzle blockages. It works by blowing smoke through the pipework via the deluge valve test line. Blockages can be visually detected by a reduction in smoke exiting the nozzles, allowing further investigation and remedial work.
Vapo-Flo lines the pipework with a oil-based vapour resin that reduces further corrosion, ensuring the safety and integrity of the all the plant and equipment.
Blaze has a long history of challenging the norm, questioning practices and offering solutions to ensure the optimum safety and protection of people and plant. We continue to innovate and improve to ensure fire systems will operate on demand, delivering the life-saving water volumes to control and mitigate the effects of fire, to not only meet safety standards but surpass them, in the hope that the world never again witnesses another disaster like Piper Alpha.
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