The 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster will be marked with an offshore safety conference.

BBC: Piper Alpha

The North Sea was the scene of the world's worst offshore rig disaster, the Piper Alpha explosion, which killed 167 people in 1988.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

In 1988, the world's worst offshore accident occurred when the Piper Alpha oil platform exploded in the British sector of the North Sea, killing 167 people.

CNN: Monday,

At Piper Alpha, where 167 men had died, huge pieces of debris had to be moved from the wellhead by cranes tossing like flotsam amid the wind and the waves.

ECONOMIST: Obituary

It includes the testimony of a Piper Alpha survivor.

BBC: Remembering Piper Alpha disaster

Piper Alpha was a transformational event in every respect.

BBC: Piper Alpha

To pay for disasters like the Piper Alpha oil-rig fire of 1988, and then 1989's Exxon Valdez shipwreck off Alaska, unprecedented wads of money were now required from the names' own pockets.

ECONOMIST: The Lloyd's insurance market

More hazardous still were fires out on oil platforms, such as the Bravo blowout in the North Sea in 1977 and the Piper Alpha disaster, off Aberdeen, in 1988, where the capping of the well had to be done in the face of mountainous seas.

ECONOMIST: Obituary