Chuck Yates Needs A Job

0:00 It was 475 feet, something at the bottom of the North Sea, and the salvaged it, and the rest were the, they got 81 bodies out of that accommodation. And that six guys that I told you that they

0:16 decided to stay, their bodies were recovered from that module also

0:32 Hey everybody, welcome to Chuck Yates Needs a Job the Podcast. Today is simply an amazing episode. Literally one of the most harrowing stories I've ever heard, oil-fueled or otherwise. My guest

0:45 is Joe Minion. Joe Minion was out on the Piper Alpha platform in the North Sea on July 6, 1988. And I'm so honored that he would come on the podcast today and share that story with you This is a

1:01 story you're not going to want to miss.

1:04 So Joe, before we talk about July 6, why don't you tell me a little bit about your background? What were you doing? How did you get out

1:21 to the middle of the North Sea?

1:23 Yeah, I first went offshore in 1982 and worked on a number of different platforms for different operators chill.

1:33 EP, Chevron, and ended up on paper alpha at the start of

1:42 1988, and March, March of that year was my first trip on paper alpha. So I had about six, six years or so experience offshore with different operators and how they worked, our systems, you know,

1:58 pretty much the same, but you know, some were more

2:04 safety conscious than other ones. Yeah. And so what were you doing? What was your job out in kind of

2:14 flat? My job,

2:18 I had a number of jobs in the last school, but I went up to the Shetland Islands, which is north of the main line of Scotland, we were building an oil terminal up there, and I went there. I was a

2:31 scout with a, yeah.

2:35 I'm dead. Yeah. So I did a little bit of reading on Piper Alpha. So correct me where I'm wrong, but it was basically a joint venture, I think between Oxy, Getty, Thompson, North Sea and Allied

2:50 chemicals. And like I was saying earlier, it was about 120 miles northeast of Aberdeen And I think at kind of the time we're going to be talking about, it was producing maybe 10 of the oil and gas

3:05 out of the North Sea. So it was a really, really big platform.

3:11 It sure was. It kind of had an average daily production of 250,

3:17 000 barrels of oil a day. That was the average. It did hit a peak in 1986 think it was of over 300, 000 barrels. If you're looking at an average family car with a 50 liter tank, there's 159

3:34 litres in a barrel of oil, you know, so just used for calculation now. But so that's over a million cars a day, volume of, no fluid that was coming out of the. Yeah, no. No, I see you.

3:51 Yeah, no, that's definitely a big, huge platform And kind of my understanding of the platform was it originally was an oil production only platform and then just regulatory reasons why the North

4:09 Sea moved away from flaring natural gas and so gas processing as well as transmission, transportation type facilities were added to the platform over time script.

4:27 When the platform first went on location in 1976, the total weight of the platform was 14, 000 tonnes. In

4:40 1988, it had more than doubled to over 34, 000 tonnes, the actual weight of the platform. So it showed you how much more machinery and

4:54 added facilities were added onto the platform over the 12 years or so.

5:01 So your six-year oil-filled veteran had been out on platforms and you go out to the largest or one of the largest offshore platforms in the North Sea and was your time out there kind of typical of oil

5:19 field like we see in the United States, sort of two weeks on, two weeks off, is that kind of. things were, then you had multiple shots going. Exactly, yeah, we were pretty much on base shift,

5:32 but your normal kind of day was a 15-hour day because we had to,

5:40 it was normally based, well, we should have been based on just 12 worlds, but we worked another three years because it was a shutdown on, you know, it was a partial shutdown in the platform and

5:52 it reverted back to working in its first phase as oil only. The paper also received gas and oil from three other platforms in the

6:05 field, you know, so they were feeding paper with oil and gas and the main pipeline from paper run back to the oil terminal in the art islands So the paper also was the main player enough.

6:24 oil field, you know, that was the oil field. Got you. So why don't you? Why don't you tell me about what happened on July 6, 1988? Yeah, it just, you know, although there was enough a lot,

6:41 it was really productive platform. It wasn't the biggest platform I'd ever been on. You know, it's kind of, it was just really no very, very well positioned in it really, you know, it was

6:55 producing so much oil. Probably the platform wasn't big enough, you know, for what the job it was there to do you, know. But yeah, on that day, the

7:07 6th of July was a Wednesday. And we just worked a normal day and it was a beautiful summer is there, you're getting a nice see, the sea was quite flat caught them and yeah read the I was actually

7:23 coming to the end of my two weeks Chuck. So I don't, we had only one more shift to do on the Thursday and we'd be flying home on the Friday morning. So we were come, let's say come to the end of

7:36 two weeks. So the guys I was working with, we knew that the cardi shack, the film was on that night in the cinema. So we went up to watch that. We finished at nine o'clock that night But then got

7:51 a quick shower, changed, and the actual film kind of started just about five past, ten past nine, you know, 'cause the new people were working till nine o'clock. So we, you know, got a quick

8:04 change and shot up to the cinema to watch cardi shack. We'd maybe been in the cinema for 40 minutes or so. And yeah, the cinema was quite busy 'cause it was a good movie, you know, of the

8:19 platform was filled. We actually had The Tharasp was a semi-submersible rig alongside for extra accommodation but the guys went off at night time and went over to the Tharasp. So it was really,

8:37 really busy at the platform. So the cinema was quite busy. Well, it was just a bit full, you know, and say after about 40 minutes or so, we were sitting in a cinema And then you could hear that,

8:49 what I can only describe is like a jet engine, really revving up, you know, full power on, you know, it was such a powerful noise. And our silence fell over the cinema because it was, you know,

9:04 it was totally unusual. It was right out, you know, nobody really experienced this before. And then it subsided and the cinema got lively again, you know, and everybody was laughing again but

9:17 maybe two minutes later it started off again but even more intense. and more powerful you could actually feel it through your seat in the cinema. And then it was a huge explosion. The whole

9:31 platform roped back and forward. Part of the roof of the cinema fell in, the lighting all went off. Some emergency lighting came on then. There was an initial panic in the cinema, but there were

9:43 nobody shouting or calm down it's not so get out to the exit and get through into

9:51 the accommodation area. I kind of first thought it was trying to get to where lifeboats, because that was actually our muster station was at our lifeboat also, you know, so that's where you would

10:04 go.

10:06 But

10:08 him quite apart and quite quickly, you couldn't get outside The smoke was too bad, you know, it was too thick and you wouldn't have lasted any time at all outside night smoke. So I did. to go to

10:22 the west side of the platform, try to go to the east side of the platform, same, so just kinda after maybe five, six, seven minutes, just simply elevate my way up to the galley area, which was

10:39 just under the heli deck, you know, where you'd get your food from that, you know, and your meals. When I go

10:48 up

10:50 there, there must have been about a hundred men just sitting in the galley, but sitting on the floor or lying on the floor or sitting in their backs to the wall, getting down, you know, as low as

11:01 possible. Was it quite so bad in the galley at that point, I smoke wise, it was supposed to be a safe area in the galley, positive air flow, you know, so it was supposed to, you know, instead

11:16 be negative and letting smoke in, it was positive, so it was supposed to keep the. smoke out. You were always told when you'd done your safety survival courses that your first method of evacuation

11:31 would be by helicopter. So it just seemed to be everybody was up there. But when I got into the galley there was a silence in the galley, nobody was speaking at all.

11:44 The emergency lighting was still on at that point.

11:48 As I got separated from the people I was with in a cinema earlier, some of my work colleagues, and just as I got into that cinema which was double doors you opened to get into the galley, a guy

12:05 came in behind me and shouted, Is there anybody here from Borden's? which was the name of the company that was doing the drilling, that was a drilling crew on the platform.

12:17 So I thought, Well, Well, that's a good idea I showed you. Does there any scaffold us here?

12:23 and some of my roommates and some of my other colleagues had helped me and recognized my voice and shouted that they were actually around the back of the galley, just beside the kitchen area. And as

12:37 I was going over walking around, stepping over some bodies and that, the OIM, which is the offshore installation manager, was there with the safety officer. And somebody shouted, call and tell

12:49 us what's happening, what are we going to do? And I think it was a safety officer that answered, says, The

12:56 binomade they sent out, what's there had been?

12:60 And it should be helicopters here within the next 20 minutes, half an hour to rescue us. But as I kind of passed them, I looked back and there was just like a black look on the

13:14 guy's faces, you know, they were just

13:17 out their depths as we kind of all were, like you know, that as I got around and where my colleagues were now, they were all sitting on the floor, or lying on the floor as well. But they had wet

13:32 towels over their mouth and nose, and the smoke was getting more intense at that point also. You could hear actually windows breaking, you could hear a small explosions happening on the platform.

13:47 So they advised me, does those towels up at the sink get a towel there? And soak it. So I just went up instinctively, got a towel and toned on the tap, but there was no water. It's really

14:01 starting to sink in to me now that, well, if there's no water, there's no power, there's no, there'll be nothing to fight the fire with, you know, we're in a real bad situation here. So anyway,

14:14 there was some water left in the bottom of the sink, soaked the towel, went back down with the guys. So what's happening, do we know anything, do does anybody know what we should do? And said no.

14:30 In this area there was about 20, 20 of us. And

14:36 so, let's say things were getting more intense, the smoke was getting more intense than the emergency light and field as well. And he said, well, if we stay in here and anything else happens,

14:49 there will not be any position to be able to do anything for ourselves. Why don't we go out the back door of the galley and go up onto the heli deck and possibly see if there's any, see if there's

15:01 anything we could do for ourselves. So we were sitting there and just looking at each other, we chat and say, okay, let's go, let's go. So 12 of us, 12 or 14 years left. And just as we were

15:16 leaving, why was last to leave? There was six guys who were working for a community. communication company fixing the radio systems and the satellite dishes on the platform and stuff like that.

15:30 And we've done a bit of work for them. So we knew who they were. Nice is to the guys. I says, Use guys not coming. And they looked at each other, six of them and they just said, No, we're just

15:40 going to stay. We've been told to stay. So I said, Okay, well, good luck to you guys So when we got outside and up onto the heli deck, we could, that's when we

15:54 first realized how bad the situation really was, you know. And so we went along and there was a radio room, like a converted container, where it's been, it was an office for the heli deck landing

16:09 crew plus the radio room was in there We climbed up on top of that because that was the highest point we could get to in that area to try and get ourselves out the smoke. And we were. We're lying

16:22 there and you can actually see the smoke coming across and layers. You know, it was big waves of smoke coming across. So when it was a break in the smoke, we were all standing up and trying to

16:34 catch some fresh air. Also at that time as well, Chuck, the Tharrus, which was alongside,

16:43 you know, as a support vessel, it was supposed to be a firefighting vessel also But I had a water cannon on top of one of the crane booms, you know, right at the top. So up to this point, that

16:56 was the only water cannon that had been trained on paper. And that

17:01 was just fanning back and forward. So it was actually catching us and it was a great relief to us actually because, believe it or not, I had a great head of hair back in that day, 34 years ago And

17:15 so it soaked over hair, soaked were closed. And I think that saved myself from. more badly injured, is how gone to explain, you know. But when we were up there and it's only maybe two, three,

17:30 four minutes, some of the guys,

17:34 some sincere things were said to each other and that, you know. And then somebody suggested maybe the Tharros could move closer, it was just getting, you know,

17:45 ridiculous ideals that was coming out, you know, but in maybe a way, the crane boom down on the heli deck and we could climb onto that, it was just real fantasy kind of ideas, no desperate ideas

18:05 to, you know. So anyway, we went over and the Tharros was off the west side of the platform. And just as we got over, because Hyper had like two heli decks, emergency heli deck and, you know,

18:14 the proper heli deck they used. So we got over to the west side of the platform, and death. That's when the riser was a

18:26 28 inch pipe gas pipeline from the Tatton platform and that fractured. And that's when you've seen the huge explosion, if you've seen it at all. And yeah, just totally come up and golf the

18:38 platform. We didn't actually know what had happened, but everybody had just

18:46 jumped back the way people fallen and talking and everything

18:51 And then as I go off, everybody just seemed to disappear. They just seemed to, you know, scatter to four wins, you know, and I never - Let me ask you. Joe, let me ask you something just real

19:04 quick to help kind of visualize the scene. So you're up on the heliport there. How many feet above the water is that? You know, it was 175

19:17 feet. Okay, so you're looking over an edge, 175 feet down, so water, and you're basically just flames or all, I mean, a smoke is all around you. At that point, you'd have your periodic breaks

19:32 in the smoke where maybe you could see a little bit, but that was kind of hit.

19:39 Oh my gosh - Yeah. So, it was a short space of time as well, so it's only 22

19:50 minutes from the first explosion to the second huge explosion in golf, the platform, you know? And

20:01 yeah, I see everybody just simply disappear. I myself run across and there was a radio mast. It was just

20:11 caused by the, the, the,

20:15 the, the, So I climbed onto that and I was climbing up the ladder, internal ladder on this radio mast. I was actually going nowhere. If I got to the top, I couldn't go anywhere else. So I just

20:29 slipped at that point. And I just thought to myself, I just thought, well, I just thought, well, that's it, I'm dead here. That's the thought I had come in in my mind. But then just at that

20:43 same time also,

20:49 something just took over what I was doing. So I came down the radio mast, which took you down to the level below the heli deck, run along to the access stairs that took you up onto the heli deck.

21:03 You know, if you were leaving the platform or arriving on the platform, run across the north side of the platform. The huge explosion had actually cleared all the smoke, You know, the. used up

21:15 all the oxygen so the smoke had all disappeared. Had a look over, could see the water 'cause the explosion had cleared all the smoke away. Took my life vest off, threw it over the side. And

21:31 although I knew exactly what I was doing, it was as if it was an outer body experience. It was this, some day else was making me do what I was doing. And then I took a few steps back and I had a

21:42 run 'cause I knew I had to maybe clear the platform to get as far away 'cause it was over hanging things down below the heli deck. So I took it round, this safety net and round the heli deck. So

21:56 the supports on that and I threw myself off as much as I could. And that's kind of when I came back to myself, Chuck, and the first thing I came in my head, I don't know if you want to cut this

22:08 out or whatever, but the first thing I came back in my head was, What the fuck have I done? And then. No another thought

22:19 came into my head till I hit the water, which was roughly, it's between six and seven seconds to cover that distance - Oh my gosh - Yeah - Oh my gosh. So I mean, you're jumping, what, like 150

22:31 feet? Is that, it's 175 feet, yeah - Okay, wow. Oh my gosh, six to seven seconds. And it was really roughly a bit, you got that And I say, no, I thought, not another thought coming into my

22:48 head. And I never seen a light or anything like that, you know, a tunnel or anything. But I knew when I hit the water and I went down quite deep. I don't know how deep it was, but it took me

23:05 another two seconds, three seconds to get back to the surface, you know. But I had a reference because I remember seeing the light exposure, no, the fire. So that gave me a reference to get back

23:18 to the surface. So when I got back to the surface, I had a huge big gulp over here. And there

23:27 was a lot of debris in the water, but floating next to me in the water was a life jacket. And I could only have been a life jacket. I threw in front of me, I would have thought. It was actually,

23:41 all the lifeboats were staged, were stationed at the north end of the platform. And one of them had been blown off in the explosion. And part of the roof of this lifeboat was floating in the water

23:57 next to me as well. So I managed to wedge my arm into that and put my other arms through my life jacket. And I said, it was a beautiful summer's night. 6th of July, you often got days like that.

24:11 It was flat calm.

24:13 The way the sea was running that night was from south to north. So it was actually taking me away from the platform. If that makes sense, you know what I mean? The way the sea was running. So

24:26 that was in my favour. Minus to get, I don't know, 28, 30 yards away, whatever. And then I seen the rest of this lifeboat floating in the water. So disregarded the stuff I had, swam over to

24:41 the lifeboat Minus to climb up into the lifeboat.

24:48 The roof was missing. I just kind of sat on the edge of the lifeboat and I was looking back at the platform and just trying to take in what I was seeing. And I just couldn't believe what I was

24:60 watching, you know. And that's actually when I looked down at my arms because I only had a short sleeve t-shirt on that night similar to this. And I had these huge blisters on my arms. I couldn't

25:12 quite understand how I'd managed to get these blisters. You know what I mean? I couldn't figure it out. I wasn't getting any contact with Flamer in and I don't know how did that happen. But also

25:27 everything was happening so quickly. There was a fast rescue craft, one of these zed crafts, you know,

25:36 in the water it was launched from one of the supply boats it was close by And they came over at the lifeboat and they put me into the lifeboat, into the fast rescue craft, sorry, got me out of the

25:47 lifeboat put me into the fast rescue craft, lay me along the side of it. And that's actually when my injuries started taking effect on me, you know. So from then for the next maybe earlier or so I

25:59 just mind being in and out of consciousness a few times

26:06 eventually it took me to the thardos which had some hospital. facilities on it also, you know, some medical and some doctors and medics there, you know. Remember them winching me up when they're

26:20 crying because the sport lights on the crane were shining down on us. I'd lifted me up on a stretcher, got me into the hospital, or the medical facilities on the Tharros, and that was, that was a

26:36 doctors

26:38 that I'd do from Harvard in by that point. And I just remember when the doctors saying just, you know, he needs a shot of morphine. So I got a shot of morphine in my backside and I could just feel

26:51 it spread and across my body and I was kind of okay after that, you know. Wow. So what, what's the temperature of the North Sea there? I mean, you, I mean, you, make this harrowing jump,

27:06 which I never could have done. I'm scared to death of. of heights. You make this harrowing jump, but I mean, you don't have it's not like the Gulf Coast where you could float around for a few

27:17 days. I mean, it's it's cold, isn't it? In the North Sea? Yeah, yeah, maybe what? 11, 12 degrees centigrade. I don't know what's that? 40, 50 Fahrenheit, something like that. So yeah,

27:32 but

27:34 yeah, I also maybe better fit in a way also, but you know, where the buns are hard and that as well. You know, you're obviously you want to cool your body down as quick as possible. But

27:48 yeah, I wasn't in the water actually that long, you know, maybe five or six, seven minutes, something like that. But yeah, yeah, you're right. You know, hypothermia can

28:01 kick in even, you know, in the best of the weather and summertime here. Yeah,

28:07 no, the so it wound up. I think ultimately 165 people actually died during this tragedy. And only 61 people actually survived it.

28:27 What's life been like kind of post that? I can't imagine trying to emotionally recover from that kind of a harrowing event Yeah, I mean it was obviously tough. We did get help from psychologists

28:47 and stuff like that. There was a support team.

28:56 I spent six weeks in the hospital

28:60 with various operations for skin grafts and such like But I say there was people there, a professor. David Alexander, who was quite well known to do a psychology and psychiatric stuff and that,

29:19 you know. And he was a great help. He set up a team of social workers that

29:27 would specialize in trauma and that. Although, 34 years ago post-traumatic stress wasn't really, it was just in its infancy, but maybe then, you know, it was

29:39 just starting to get realized, you know, how people can suffer with post-traumatic stress disorder, you know. I was very fortunate, Chuck, that I had really, my first Christmas in 1980 at home.

29:57 I just let it all go. I was just tried for what seemed for ages It was maybe I knew it or something, you know, but I just really got all out because all I could think about was, you know. and a

30:11 few of my friends obviously died there as well.

30:16 Just a bit of

30:19 their families, Christmas day and that would be the first Christmas day. Without them, you know, and yeah, it was quite tough, but I really came out and got out my system and then I just came

30:31 out and maybe I just heard that we looked in the mirror and

30:36 had I

30:38 talked to myself, you know, and I said as well, if I, what

30:41 I said was if I hadn't survived myself and one of my friends or some of my friends had survived, I would have been wanting them to make the best of a certain chance of life that they've had, you

30:54 know, so, you know, let's put this behind us and, you know, just try and get on with your life as best you can, you know, so that was our face-to-face talk in the mirror to myself Yeah, no, I

31:08 mean one of our big issues that we've come to learn about men is our pressure point is the ability to fix something. When we can't fix things, that's kind of what breaks us down. And I think the

31:21 other thing we've learned over the last, you know, call it 20, 25 years is that internal feelings ultimately manifest themselves in one way, shape or form as shame, you know, embarrassment and

31:36 the like and the only way to get through that shame unfortunately is to talk about it. And as men, we just don't do that. You know, I mean, you go get a beer with a buddy, but at the same time

31:46 being able to break down and share is just not kind of our core competency. And so kind of kudos to you for actually breaking down and being willing to share that because that is unfortunately the

32:01 only way we get through events like this. Absolutely. Yeah. If it's too soon, say it's tough. from two survivors committed suicide, will cause the stress of what happened to them, survivors

32:18 guilt that was mentioned, post traumatic stress disorder, and they just couldn't deal with

32:26 what they'd come through, and

32:30 some of the friends they've lost and stuff like that. And it was just too much for them to their own lives - Yeah, so what are

32:39 the, tell me about one of 61, what is the group, what are you doing with that - Well, I do some talks regarding, and what I would call it is I could

32:58 introduce myself as a safety impact speaker and tell people that what I've went through and about, you know.

33:08 how it's affected my life, how I've lived with it, and just to get the message across, it can happen to anybody anytime. Not necessarily working, it could happen even in your own home stuff.

33:24 It's

33:27 mostly oil companies and such like that, I've done these presentations for, but yeah, it's just getting that message over that yeah, it can happen to anybody at any team - Yeah, it means one of

33:39 the things I learned kind of reading about this coming up is one of the issues and

33:47 I'll get this wrong, so correct me was just, literally there was a pump, a safety valve that was not supposed to be used in the communication from one shift to the other, just didn't pick that up.

34:02 And that was kind of part of it You know, it was great, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there was two

34:12 condensate pumps, some condensate as a gas that they take out the oil and then it gets cleaned up and it was injected back into the oil to transport it back to the oil terminal. And yeah, one pipe,

34:26 one pump had been isolated. The work hadn't started on that. But on the same gas line, they took a safety valve off as well, whose two separate permits issued that they were never cross-referenced

34:41 with each other. So when pump B tripped that night, they found the permit for the pump A realized that the work hadn't started on the actual electric pump. So they started that up, but with the

34:60 safety valve being taken out,

35:04 It just was a blank plunge.

35:08 on the open pike work to save any loose impediments getting into the pike work. And it was only hand tightened, so that's where the gas escaped from. You know, that was the noise we were hearing

35:20 in the cinema. So it caused, let's say, the permits were cross-referenced. They only found the permit for the pump.

35:30 Very, yeah, poor communication, like said, and the transfer of, the transferes between the D shift and the night shift operators -

35:44 Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's one of the things that, you know, we're having a lot of discussion today about energy transition and solar and wind folks are fighting with oil and gas folks.

35:58 And, you know, all of this type of stuff, and I do think what's lost potentially in part of this discussion.

36:08 is, you know, oil and gas is a really, really tough business. Safety really matters. And there's a lot of humanity to it that we need to be at least appreciative of for our lights to come on,

36:23 for our, to be able to get in the car and drive down the road and go to the street. And so it's, it's

36:33 amazing when you, when you deal with a lot of pressure, it's just very dangerous stuff - That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That was, seemed to be back in the day, you know, 34 years ago that it was

36:48 just get, just get the oil out the ground as quick as the kitchen, you know, that was a, you know, quite amazing. One of the facts I found out later on is that Occidental it, taking revenue of

37:05 20. 2 billion or something from 1976

37:13 through to 1988. That's a revenue that got out of paper all following.

37:22 There was

37:24 a deluge system on all the platforms of deluge systems, but it was actually the laws of London down on order on it and it was actually contained. So normally you would have had to shut down a

37:40 platform to let go of fix, to be working properly. But the Occidental got an exemption from the British government to keep using the

37:54 platform and keep the platform in production and got a two-year exemption to get it fixed So another thing I read too is that the original design. of the platform because it was oil producing only.

38:11 They separated in effect where people would sleep and the oil operations with as much as you can out on a limited space platform. And that when they moved to, I believe it was called phase two when

38:26 they went from flaring natural gas to actually capturing the natural gas that a lot of the construction for the natural gas facilities were put all on top of everything. So this concept of using some

38:43 distance to create safety was kind of thrown out. Like the natural gas compressor was right next door to the living quarters or however it. And that literally they kept the platform running the

38:55 whole time they did that work. Where the original engineering was, now shut the platform down, let's do the work and then we'll bring them in back - Yeah, that's good. And also the modules was A,

39:08 module A, B, C and D. And the modules were separated by firewall. Module C was the gas

39:19 conversion module. And

39:23 it should really have had blast walls in it. Not just not fire walls, you know. But because the fire walls, it was, we could put your finger actually through the fire walls They were just

39:35 crumbled a bit, actually. You know, it was just useless. And what happened from the first explosion in module C, there was debris, you know, missiles that came from the first explosion that

39:49 fractured crude oil pipes in module A. You know, it was that powerful enough, it sent of debris

39:57 and metal work through and fractured oil pipes in module A and that's what said the fire. at the start of it is also, you know? So it was just a waste of time really having firewalls should have

40:14 been blast walls - Yeah. Well, Joe, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing this story with us 'cause is this

40:26 a story that should not be forgotten and I'll even go on record that I think every oil and gas executive needs to read about this story at least once or twice in their career because safety does

40:41 matter -

40:44 I must say earlier this year I've been down in London three times from BPE

40:50 executives

40:53 and some of the guys that were there were across from the Gulf of Mexico and that as well and these were the executives, you know, and charge the whole oil fields and that, you know. And I was, I

41:09 thought that was a great thing that they had done. It's all come from the top, the new chairman of BP, you know, and he's, it had me down three times to speak to different groups, you know, and

41:20 as far as I can see from the feedback I got, it was, you know, it was very well received, you know, so if it makes a difference, it's,

41:30 that helps me a lot as well. You know, I got a lot of good feedback

41:38 and that was really, you know, it made it all worthwhile doing these talks presentations, you know, it's, it was a great thing.

41:46 So Joe, these safety talks sound great. Is it something you do? Could people reach out, get in touch with you for, for these safety talks? Because if I ran an oil and gas every one of my people

42:02 heard you speak -

42:05 Chuck, well, most of my works come through LinkedIn. So if anybody wants to get in contact with me, it's Joe Munin, or mostly to do LinkedIn, and it's got my details, email address and phone

42:18 number and such like, if anybody would like to message me, I'm quite happy to engage with them -

42:25 That's great. Well, again, Joe, I appreciate you coming on This was an amazing story, and I'm sitting here still kind of breaking out in cold sweat and shaking a bit, so I'm glad you're still

42:39 here - Oh, absolutely, yeah, great, great. And maybe hopefully one day we'll meet up face to face and bill as well.