US operator Marathon Oil has been fined £1.16 million ($1.48 million), one of the largest penalties ever for UK offshore safety failures, over a massive high-pressure gas blast and leak on the Brae Alpha platform in the UK central North Sea that occurred three and half years ago.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard this week that on 26 December 2015 an eight-inch diameter high-pressure pipework in module 14 of the platform suffered a catastrophic rupture as a result of corrosion under insulation, allowing about 2150 kilogrammes of methane gas to be released almost instantaneously.
