The oil and gas industry has seen its fair share of disasters over the years, but on July 6, 1988, disaster struck the North Sea in a manner never seen before. at any other time in the history of the industry. The legacy of the Occidental Piper Alpha, which sat 474 feet above the sea floor and was operated by Occidental Petroleum, had met a tragic end, taking 167 souls with it. The oil and gas platform was the most productive in the North Sea at the time it was destroyed by fire. It was the Piper Alpha disaster that sparked many changes in the oil and gas industry and revealed what could go horribly wrong if procedures were not followed correctly. The disaster also changed the design of current oil rigs, making them as safe as possible. It was only after the finalization of the "Lord Cullen Report" that the world was able to better understand the causes which led to the Piper Alpha disaster. . Although the investigation struggled with very little physical evidence, information from eyewitnesses and accounts of what led to the disaster helped give investigators a clearer picture. Eyewitness accounts concluded that a cloud of flammable hydrocarbons was released into the air when a pump relief valve was removed for maintenance and the pump restarted . It is this cloud that will eventually find a source of ignition and trigger the worst oil disaster in history. To first understand what went wrong with the Piper Alpha, one must first understand what the platform was and what went wrong on that terrible day in July 1988. The Piper , which began producing oil in 1976, was a large fixed platform located 120 miles north of Aberdee...... middle of paper ... an accident had been averted two years earlier when A study commissioned by Occidental Petroleum had shown that the gas lines connected to the Piper Alpha were dangerous because of the time it would take to reduce the pressure if ever necessary (Piper Alpha platform disaster). The Claymore and Tartan should have been stopped immediately after the first call. Even though the world's worst offshore disaster occurred on July 6, 1988, to date 30 bodies have not been recovered. A memorial honors these souls in the beautiful rose garden of Hazlehead Park in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is affixed to three oil field workers, atop a grave, dressed in work clothes and wearing appropriate protection. It is a true work of art that recalls the lives of a handful of individuals who worked to bring the world its oil and gas..