Piper 25: Lord Cullen to Stress Importance of Strong Leadership in Offshore Safety

Lord Cullen, the man who led the Public Inquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster will stress the importance of strong leadership in how safety is managed offshore, at a major three-day conference this summer.

Twenty-five years after the world’s worst offshore disaster, which claimed the lives of 167 men, Lord Cullen will give the keynote address at Oil & Gas UK’s Piper 25 conference. The event, sponsored by Talisman Sinopec Energy UK Limited, will review how far offshore safety has come since then and re-focus the industry’s efforts to continue improving.

Lord Cullen will emphasise the fundamental importance of a positive safety culture as part of the control of major hazards. He will tell around 700 delegates that the quality of safety management is crucial, adding that even today it remains critical that leadership in safety is actively demonstrated by managers at all levels.

He will discuss the challenge for leaders, as he sees it, focusing on four main aspects: process safety; continually reviewing the arrangements for hazard control; ensuring effective communications; and turning safety aspirations into reality.

He is also expected to talk about the importance of having a strong focus on giving the workforce a leading role in their own safety, drawing attention to the importance of valuing and properly training elected safety representatives.

Lord Cullen will talk about the approach he took in the inquiry and his methodology in deciding what to investigate and how far to pursue different strands of the investigation.

Lord Cullen said: “The Piper Alpha disaster led to changes in the framework within which offshore safety requires to be managed.

“But the achievement of safety is critically dependent on leadership in its management and on motivation of the workforce, and thereby a positive and learning culture.”

Oil & Gas UK’s health and safety director, Robert Paterson, said: “Lord Cullen’s report made 106 recommendations which have since transformed the way safety is managed offshore. There is no doubt that Piper Alpha was a wake up call for the oil and gas industry and the Public Inquiry which followed helped steer the industry on a path of continuous improvement.

“We can never be complacent and I hope the Piper 25 conference will not only be an opportunity to remind ourselves of this tragedy and how far we’ve come, but to galvanise our resolve to keep on improving and to ensure a disaster like Piper Alpha can never happen again.”

Places at the conference are limited to 700 and as the event is expected to become fully booked very soon, it is advised to book places soon.

Lord Cullen was born in 1935. He practised at the Scottish Bar from 1960 until 1986, when he was appointed a Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. Later he held office as the Lord Justice Clerk, and then as the Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice- General of Scotland until his retirement in 2005.

During his period on the Bench he conducted the Public Inquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster, on which he reported in 1990. Thereafter he conducted the public inquiries into the shootings at Dunblane Primary School and the Ladbroke Grove rail crash.

He was appointed a life peer in 2003, and a Knight of the Thistle in 2007. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1993. He has received a number of honorary degrees, and has been made an honorary fellow of professional institutions, including the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is the current Chancellor of the University of Abertay Dundee.

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Press Release, April 12, 2013