British Report Faults Oxy for ’88 Rig Blast

Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s faulty training and safety procedures were to blame in a July, 1988, explosion aboard a North Sea offshore oil rig that killed 167 people, a British government inquiry reported Monday.

The explosion on Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s Piper Alpha rig was Britain’s most serious industrial accident and the worst in that nation’s offshore industry, according to British Energy Secretary John Wakeham.

Fires from the blast took nearly a month to extinguish, and safety experts testifying at the inquiry ranked it the third worst man-made disaster, after India’s Bhopal poison gas leak and the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl nuclear plant accident.

The 488-page report, published in London, has been forwarded to Scotland’s Lord Advocate for review for possible prosecution, Wakeham said.

The report, issued by Scottish High Court Judge Lord Cullen who conducted a yearlong inquiry, said “at no stage was there a systematic system to lead men to escape.”

Smoke and flames were so intense that rescue efforts by lifeboat or helicopter were impossible.

Sixty-two men survived by jumping 50 feet or more off the platform or swinging down by ropes and hoses.

“I believe that the good of Lord Cullen’s report is going to be not in the criticism, but in the recommendations,” said Glenn Shurtz, president of Occidental U.K. “We are already well ahead of the industry and have supplemented our existing safety standards to the cost of 50 million pounds (about $100 million).”

Shurtz said Cullen’s report and the profound changes it will bring to the entire oil industry “will ensure that these men did not lose their lives in vain.”

An Occidental spokeswoman in Los Angeles said local company executives would have no additional comment on the report or its impact on company operations.

Lord Cullen’s report said inspections by British Energy Department safety officers “were superficial to the point of being of little use as a test of safety.”

He recommended shifting responsibility for offshore oil industry safety matters from the Department of Energy to the Health and Safety Department; the British government reportedly has agreed to implement the recommendation. The U.K. Offshore Operators Assn., representing 36 gas and oil companies working in the North Sea, said the report is a “blueprint for the future.”

Group director Harold Hughes said oil companies have already spent $1.5 billion on improving offshore rig safety.

A natural gas leak is believed to have started the blaze. Scientists and chemical engineers hired to determine the explosion’s cause said a slush formed by particles of methane, ethane, propane and carbon dioxide might have clogged pipes and leaked out around the rig’s safety valve.