It lies roughly halfway between Aberdeen and Bergen, at the eastern end of the Moray Firth basin.

[1] Piper Alpha was the site of the world's deadliest oil platform disaster when it was destroyed by an explosion in 1988, with the loss of 167 lives.

[3] Occidental Petroleum Corp., Getty Oil (Britain) Ltd., Thomson North Sea Ltd., and Allied Chemical (North Sea) Ltd.,[1] that later transformed into the OPCAL joint venture, obtained an oil exploration licence in 1972 and discovered the Piper oilfield in early 1973 after seismically mapping the area.

A 30-inch (760 mm) diameter main oil pipeline ran 128 miles (206 km) from Piper Alpha to Flotta, with a short oil pipeline from the Claymore platform joining it some 20 miles (32 km) to the west.

The field consists of three folded, tilted blocks on the northern edge of the Witch Ground Graben.