EXCLUSIVE: The BBC is developing a drama series about the Piper Alpha disaster, one of the most catastrophic offshore oil incidents of all time and the worst in terms of lives lost.
The drama comes around 35 years after the disaster, which took place off the coast of Scotland on a North Sea oil rig that at the time accounted for around 10% of the North Sea’s oil and gas production.
The BBC, Scottish producer STV Studios and writer James Wood (Trying, The Great) are in the research phase, we are told, and the show is yet to go into production or be given the green light. It is being developed in consultation with Piper Alpha survivors and relatives, and would be based on these new interviews, ongoing research, the 1990 Cullen report into the tragedy and the book Fire in the Night by Stephen McGinty.
Piper Alpha began production in 1976 around 120 miles north east of Aberdeen, a Scottish city known as one of the oil capitals of Europe. Twelve years after it opened, the rig collapsed following jet fires, which killed 165 men on board and two rescuers. Many of the bodies were never recovered and the disaster’s ripple effects are still felt today. There were 61 survivors.
Piper Alpha remains one of the most expensive man-made catastrophes of all time and is equal to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in terms of its impact on the oil industry. The inquiry took place two years after the disaster and made a wealth of preventative recommendations for the future, although no charges were brought against operator Occidental Petroleum.
Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales meet members of the rescue team after the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster. Image: Mirrorpix via Getty
Factual drama
STV Studios made a BAFTA-winning documentary about the disaster, Piper Alpha: Fire In The Night, around a decade ago, and we understand the company is taking extreme caution during the research process in order to respect the survivors and their relatives.
Factual dramas are popular at present and recent BBC offerings include the likes of The Sixth Commandment and Jimmy Savile series The Reckoning, while the corporation is currently in the process of making a show about the Grenfell tower disaster penned by Peter Kosminsky. ITV, meanwhile, was responsible for the biggest factual drama of the year, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, while Netflix is making Toxic Town about the tragic Corby poisonings, written by Jack Thorne.
The BBC and STV Studios declined comment on the Piper Alpha series.
