Death and Oil by Brad Matsen

Author:Brad Matsen [Matsen, Brad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-90678-6
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

At the freight container twenty feet from where Barron and Goodwin fled the accommodation module, Mark Reid and Jeff Jones collapsed with a dozen other men against the side of the container. The tomatoes were all gone and with them all hope of relief. The air seemed to be just a little clearer there, though the fire was still roaring past them from the center of the rig. Maybe the choppers had a shot after all. Reid got to his feet and wobbled to the edge of the catwalk from where he could see the helideck twenty feet above him. There were men up there. One of them, another driller named Doug Findlay, shouted down, “You can catch your breath up here. The air’s pretty clear. Not so much smoke now.”

Reid waved.

“Not me,” Jones said. “I’m going down.”

The fire below seemed impenetrable when Reid looked over the rail and considered his next move. He glanced across the catwalk to the south corner of the deck at the tanks for aviation fuel. The wind could shift in a heartbeat and bring the fire to ignite them. He had to go somewhere. Anywhere was better than where he was. Up, he thought. I’ve got to go up. Reid stood painfully. For the first time, he felt the burning.

All over Piper Alpha, the men who were still alive faced the same choices. Obey training and stay put. Disobey and go down. In the canteen, Jimmy McDonald, a rigger, asked an Occidental boss for instructions. The boss said something that sounded like “Don’t worry, we’re getting there, we’re getting there,” and babbled into incoherence.

McDonald said aloud to himself, “Get yourself off.” He grabbed another rigger who was crouching next to him and dragged him toward the reception area. At the door, the rigger pulled back into the canteen.

“We have done our muster job. They’ll send choppers in,” the rigger said.

McDonald yelled into his friend’s face, “I’ve tried to speak to a boss. He talked gibberish to me. There’s something drastically wrong on this rig. We have to get off.”

The rigger pushed McDonald away and slumped to the floor.

For many, the decisions were made by the fire above or below them, something nobody had ever seen before. The true nature of fire was so alien to them that it was able to defeat their will to survive. On the drill floor, the Bawden men on the night shift had been driving wedges into the top of the well to keep the pipe from slipping down. They were directly below the inferno on the sixty-eight-foot level and the production deck. For them, there was no choice but to go down.

Far above, at the top of the rig in the shambles of Piper Alpha’s radio room, David Kinrade transmitted Maydays on emergency batteries. He fought off the heat until he could stand it no longer. He was dazed, but fiercely aware that saving the men on his rig with a final desperate call for help was worth his own life.

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