Piper Alpha and Macondo: Similar Disasters, Different Responses

The Deepwater Horizon disaster and the Piper Alpha tragedy are separated by 22 years and the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Both are the worst offshore disasters for their respective countries, and both forever changed those nations’ regulatory regimes and the reputations of the companies involved.

Almost 10 years after the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, 2010 killed 11 men and injured 17 others, the offshore industry continues to grapple with the legacy of both disasters — even as it struggles to win back public trust. 

Both BP and Occidental Petroleum, the operators of the Deepwater Horizon and Piper Alpha, respectively, are far different companies today. BP, having gone through the crucible of the U.S. legal system, is far smaller. Much of the past decade was a financial fight for survival as it struggled to pay legal settlements, battled a declining stock price, sold assets worldwide, and even was rumored to be a takeover target. Oxy, too, is much smaller and focused primarily on drilling in the Permian Basin of West Texas. It’s currently fighting for survival amid declining oil prices, having paid $37 billion to acquire rival Anadarko Petroleum last year, a deal many analysts now question.

BP was a British company operating the Deepwater Horizon in American waters, and Oxy was an American company operating Piper Alpha in British waters. Both explosions erupted on calm moonlight nights just before 10 p.m. Both company’s CEOs struggled to respond to the disaster, although each struck a sympathetic tone early on. BP’s Tony Hayward quickly set up a fund to pay businesses and others affected by the 87-day spill that followed the disaster. Then, he made an off-hand comment to a TV reporter that he wanted his life back. That single gaffe turned public sentiment against the company and ultimately cost Hayward his job. Armand Hammer, the iconic CEO of Oxy, made a brief visit to Aberdeen and took responsibility, vowing to fund the cleanup and provide for injured employees and the families of those who died. Then he went to tea with Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street. (Hammer was later nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, losing to the Dalai Lama.)

It’s unlikely that a CEO would have tea with the prime minister in the wake of such a disaster today.

Indeed, even BP’s far harsher treatment by the U.S. government (rather than brewing up a pot of Earl Grey, President Barack Obama wanted to know “whose ass to kick”) might pale compared with the backlash in the current geo-political climate. 

The Piper Alpha explosion on July 6, 1988 — which killed 167, including two rescue workers — remains the offshore industry’s deadliest man-made disaster. BP’s Macondo disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest accidental oil spill in the industry’s history, spewed some 200 million gallons that stretched from Texas to Florida. Saddam Hussein’s torching of 800 wells as he retreated from Kuwait in 1991 spilled more oil, but it was a deliberate act of war. Even so, Wild Well Control’s Pat Campbell said cleaning up Kuwait was far easier than killing the Macondo well in 5,000 feet of water. A new oceanographic study published in February found Macondo oil still affecting marine life in the Gulf of Mexico. With each hurricane and tropical storm Macondo tar balls and tar “logs”—some twenty feet long wash ashore in Louisiana and Mississippi. 

These two disasters are linked by a series of failures — in government regulation, in best industry practices, in process safety system management and in listening to the concerns of the workforce.

Rig-owner Transocean commissioned the Deepwater Horizon and, in 2001, sent it to the Gulf, where it drilled 50 wells for BP and quickly earned a reputation as “the best of the best.” It’s crowning achievement was drilling the Tiber well to 35,000 feet in 2009, the deepest well ever drilled at the time. But nearly a decade of service began to take its toll. Soon after the Tiber project, it flunked a major audit. Parts and equipment that were no longer manufactured had been cannibalized from other rigs. The computerized drilling program was a Windows 98 program that kept freezing up and triggering the “blue screen of death.”

The Macondo well wasn’t included on its drilling schedule, but BP engineers hoped to finish it by March 8. Another Transocean rig, the Marianas, had started drilling the well, but was damaged in a hurricane in late 2009. Because the Deepwater Horizon was larger, BP assumed completing Macondo would be a short assignment.

One BP engineer even warned his team at the time that “Macondo is a different kettle of fish” from other wells the rig had drilled.

Like Piper Alpha, those on the sharp end of the safety spear for Macondo struggled to keep up with equipment failures, a backlog of maintenance issues and unusual drilling complications from the high pressure and temperatures of Macondo’s complex formation. Like Piper Alpha some people involved had a gut instinct that Macondo “was an accident wait to happen.” Three of the Transocean rig crew asked their wives to remarry if they died at sea. Several people with BP and Transocean quit or asked for reassignment.

When a major project falls behind schedule everyone can talk about safety but the underlying message that gets transmitted from the executive suite often is financial. It’s left to those on the front lines to translate those financial decisions into actions. Safety concerns often get drown out. The Macondo well was costing BP $1 million a day. Everyone from the service companies, the Transocean crew and BP company men did the calculations. They knew that every action they took or postponed was costing BP $600 a minute. And everyone on the rig knew that a well completed in less than 51 days without a recordable injury would mean an $11,000 bonus for galley hands, service personnel — everyone on the rig. The company men knew the clock for Macondo had started October 6 with the Marianas — there would be no bonuses. Many of the men on the drill crew were just hoping to literally finish this well and go home alive.

Even in the UK, BP faced a backlash. As oil continued to gush from the ruptured well, the US imposed a drilling moratorium on all deepwater operations. The European Union proposed a similar measure in the North Sea. During a hearing in the House of Commons, Hayward was asked how he could be sure a Macondo-style disaster wouldn’t happen in British waters. His answer: the UK had better regulations. Those regulations stemmed from the inquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster by Lord William Cullen. 

Lord Cullen’s report included 106 recommendations that overhauled the UK’s approach to safety. It led to a 1992 law requiring each operator to develop, with input from contractors and workers, safety processes for each installation. The “safety case” document had to be updated with every change to daily operations.

In the 1990s, the UK enacted additional regulations and by 1997, amid reports that offshore workers’ concerns were not being adequately addressed, trade and lobbying groups adopted policies designed to improve safety by 50 percent.

In the U.S., the Deepwater Horizon disaster led to a host of new safety regulations, too, but with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, many have been rolled back. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Scott Angelle, the director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement — created after Macondo to oversee offshore drilling more closely — ordered changes in drilling rules that directly contradicted his agency’s own engineers. The move comes as the Trump administration hopes to open more coastal waters to offshore drilling. Meanwhile, an analysis by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, found that the rate of offshore injuries rose by 21 percent in 2018 and 2019, compared to the previous two-year period. A senior fellow at the center called the findings “an unraveling of safety gains made after Deepwater Horizon.”

Now, as the industry once again confronts tightening budgets, weak oil prices, and the prospect of cost-cutting, the pressure on safety is mounting again. The U.S. remains far behind other countries in its offshore regulations, but the lives of Macondo need not be lost needlessly. During the slowdown that’s coming, the industry has a chance to revisit the disasters and study the mistakes that contributed to them. If we do that, then in some small way we can learn the lessons of the past and honor those who died aboard the Piper Alpha and Deepwater Horizon.

Lillian Espinoza-Gala, owner LEG Exploration Education, serves as a Membership Chair on SPE International Human Factors Technical Section Board. She served on steering committee to create two-day workshop on Offshore Process Safety and Worker Empowerment in 2018 and was a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group.