Piper Alpha was basically a North Sea oil production platform, commencing production way back in 1976, run by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Ltd, which initially started oil production and later gas production as well. Unfortunately, it was wrecked and demolished on 6 July 1988, by an explosion which triggered oil and gas fires. It resulted in a lot of destruction, including 167 casualties and only 67 men survived.
History of Piper Alpha
Occidental discovered The Piper Field in the beginning of 1973, following which Piper Alpha initiated production 3 years after. The platform was situated roughly 120 miles towards the north-east of Aberdeen. In the beginning, it only dealt in the production of oil however after a few years, in 1980 with new equipments being installed, gas production was facilitated. Piper Alpha was linked with the Flotta oil terminal on the Orkney Islands by a sub-sea pipeline that was further shared with Claymore platform. Gas pipelines of Piper Alpha linked it to Tartan platform and distinct MCP-O1 gas processing platform. In a nutshell, Piper Alpha had 4 prime transport risers: an oil export riser, the Tartan gas riser, the Claymore gas riser, & MCP-01 gas riser.
