An Audit Of Beyond Petroleum 's Ethical Practices

The oil spill started when an explosion happened on the oilrig known as the “Deepwater Horizon” oilrig. This explosion cause one of the pipelines along the sea floor to gush oil out over a period of 87 days. During the explosion 11 people working upon the oilrig went missing and still have not been found to this day. During the 87 days that the oil leaked out 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf which ended up being fatal for thousands people living along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. When the spill happened there was an immediate movement to try to save the estuaries and costal wetlands through controlled burns but most of the damage could not be controlled due to the gulfs

There are very few aspects of how a company behaves as a corporate citizen that do not apply to a company of the size and nature of BP. The most significant of these are the sheer environmental impact - not simply of the extraction of oil and the energy use of BP's own operation, but more significantly of the impact on climate change of the actual use of all the oil by BP's customers. The state of current scientific evidence raises serious question marks over whether or not human society can actually afford to burn all the hydrocarbons whose existence we have already identified - never mind potential future discoveries. Twenty years ago, people worried that one day the oil would run out. Now, it is the case that the real issue has been identified as one of emissions.

Many companies have ethical decisions that need to be and sometimes those decisions can affect many individuals or just a few. Making ethical decisions may be placed solely on one person’s shoulders or it may be a decision that multiple individuals must be involved in. There are several ethical issues in the Richardson Drilling case that should be considered. For instance, bribery, purchasing substandard parts with lack of disclosure that causes injuries, and revealing sensitive information. One potential ethical concern that could arise has to do with ongoing health insurance and the employer’s responsibility.

BP has had many questionable behaviors over the last decade. Some of the behaviors include ethical conduct, fraud, environmental crimes, endangering habitats, and even death (Thorne, n.d.). BP did not seem to learn from their mistakes based on the sequence of events that occurred over a span of several years and little emphasis was placed on the core values and ethics. They disregarded the well-being of the stakeholders while continuing to promote themselves as an ethical company (Thorne, n.d.).

A wealthy British gentleman by the name of William D’Arcy is the founder of the world famous gas station BP. D’Arcy had a thrill over oil and decided to invest all of his savings in the quest for oil in the Middle East. Experts and scientists helped encourage D’Arcy to pursue the venture. But years started to pass and funds starting to run low, William was starting to feel as if this was the wrong investment. Throughout the years BP has gone through a plethora of ups and downs. From bankruptcy, to not being able to transport oil to desired location, and also having more oil than they could sell and not having a demand for it. Also BP has had disasters related to social responsibility, and before the major oil spill in 2010,

Ethics are very important in the business world and to the general public. Ethics is defined as a system of moral principles or the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group. Using a moral compass should be a requirement for every CEO and executive. Any person who will have some impact on society needs to understand the difference between right and wrong. Since businesses touch such a large segment of our society, codes of ethics must be established and followed to protect the general public. In the following pages we will discuss the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster and examine how it relates to (1) the state of business ethics since 2000, (2) examples of the classic

BP created one of the largest oil spills in history. Under the oil rig the sea floor gushed out massive amounts of oil. About 210 million gallons poured out of it. People from the rig went missing and were never found. After failed attempts they finally sealed it on September 19, 2010.

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, located in the Gulf of Mexico exploded killing 11 workers and injuring 17. The oil rig sank a day-and-a-half later. The spill was referred to as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP oil spill, Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and BP oil disaster. It was first said that little oil had actually leaked into the ocean but a little over a month later the estimate was 12,000-19,000 barrels of crude oil being leaked per day. Many attempts were made to stop the leak but all failed until they capped the leak on July 15, 2010, and on September 19 the federal government declared the well “effectively dead.” In the three months that it took to finally put a stop the leak, 4.9 million barrels of oil were

A crisis for BP began in the middle of 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico on a British Petroleum project. The Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig exploded, sunk, and began leaking oil into the ocean for 87 days. It was finally capped on July 15th, 2010 after more than one failed attempt. Due to the explosion, eleven people went missing and were never found. This is among the most damaging ocean oil spills in the history of the oil industry, approximately 8% to 31% more volume than the previously recorded leak. The American government concluded that the amount of oil leaked was more than 4.9 million barrels or 210 million US gallons. [3]

The series of ethical issues that took place leading to the disaster are complex, and other factors such as economic and political issues arose after the catastrophe happened. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ethical issues that took place before the disaster happened, and investigate the moral obligations, social responsibility and justice at an individual and organizational level. The ethical dilemma is broken down into three categories, which include the company’s management priority to reduce costs and time, neglecting safety issues addressed by staff, human misjudgment and errors in neglecting pressure reading; and finally, overlooking the technical design flaws that were not tested by BP before installing to use. The

The BP Oil Spill An Introductory Background - One of the most controversial ecological disasters in recent history focused on multinational British Petroleum and their Gulf of Mexico Operations. The Deepwater Oil Disaster began on April 20, 2010 with an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon Oil platform, killing 11, injuring 17. It was not until July 15th, however, that the leak was stopped by capping the wellhead, after releasing almost 5 million barrels (206 million gallons) of crude oil, or 53,000 barrels per day into the Gulf of Mexico. It was not until September 19th that the relief well process was complete and the U.S. Government, EPA, and Coast Guard agencies declared the well breach effectively stopped (Cavnar, 2010).

Deepwater Horizon oil Spill: BP’s drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico had an explosion in April 2010, causing the “largest oil spill catastrophe in the petroleum industry history”. It caused the death of 11 men and injury to several others. “More than 150,000 barrels of crude oil gushed into the sea, every day, for almost 5 months and up to 68,000 square miles of the Gulf 's surface were covered” (1).

BP has had a long history of ethical and legal violations because BP chose to put profits above all else. In the past twenty years, BP subsidiaries were convicted of environmental crimes in Texas and Alaska. In addition, BP received the biggest fine in US history regarding safety violations. Although BP accepted responsibility, their record showed questionable and illegal behavior for twenty years. One of BP's major issues happened in a Texas refinery close to Galveston in 2005 (Jennings, 2009). This explosion took the lives of fifteen workers and injured five hundred people and caused residents nearby to become sheltered in their homes (Jennings, 2009). The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation board concluded that BP had

A difficult challenge primarily from operating on a multinational scale in the petroleum industry is managing a diverse range as well as a large number of sustainability issues. BP’s global operations and footprint can have severe impacts on the environment, individuals, communities and society at large (Sustainability Review, 2012).

In July 2009, the court received a request from Salazar Company which is service Management Company about releasing oil to the ocean which was operated by BP Company. Court agreed that BP was guilty for this disaster because its exploration was without attention to environment standards. Therefore, today BP well known as the worst environmental and safety record of any oil company operating in America.