Piper 25 Conference: Oil and Gas Industry Faces 30 Year Failure Cycle

Piper 25 Conference Oil and Gas Industry 30 Year Failure Cycle

Martin Grant, CEO of Energy at Atkins is to deliver a paper at today’s Piper 25 conference on the topic of major hazard management and safety technology.

The paper, entitled ‘Piper: The Journey of Understanding in the Energy Industries’, will focus on six main themes which, following cross industry research, have been highlighted as key focus areas for high hazard industries.

Dr Grant said: “Piper Alpha was a defining moment in the offshore oil and gas industry and it is clear that many lessons have been learned and embedded in the design and operational culture here in the UK.

“This paper is a collaboration between a team of colleagues working across the world and across various industries, dissecting the lessons learned and showing how these lessons have impacted the energy industries for the better.”

Atkins Director Ramsay Fraser will also be presenting on the developments in technical approaches to structural design against fires and explosions from 1988 to the present day.

Dr Fraser said: “The oil and gas industry potentially faces the same 30 year failure cycle that many other industries have already experienced – where 30 years is long enough for a communication gap to develop from one engineering generation to the next.

“Today’s structural analysis techniques are much more comprehensive and capture the complex structural mechanics involved in the response to blast and fire. This paper will illustrate some of the lessons learned on the response of structures to blast and fire loading during the past 25 years and will consider the management of this knowledge to ensure that today’s generation of structural engineers have access to it.”

Piper 25 will mark the 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster and aims to bring people from across the oil and gas industry together to reflect on the lessons learnt from the tragedy, review how far offshore safety has evolved since and to reinforce industry commitment to continuous improvement.

With Piper Alpha as a central theme, the conference will also explore broader safety issues and will feature high profile international speakers from a diverse range of backgrounds.

 

[mappress]
Press Release, June 18, 2013