How Does The Model Of Decision-Making Bias Affect The Oil Rig Disaster?

Decision making biases played a devastating role in the Deepwater Disaster. The biases that were present are; representativeness heuristic, overconfidence bias, confirmation bias and escalation of commitment bias. Based on my findings, to some extent, each of the following biases contributed to the Deepwater Disaster.

On April 20, 2010 off the Gulf of Mexico, there was a blowout of the Macondo well which is owned by British Petroleum also known as BP. When the blowout took place it got immediate media attention because aspects of the event were known over the world. Within events transpiring it was discovered how limited the resources and reaction to the disaster was going to be. This paper will detail aspects of the event from symptoms of the problem, the root cause, important unresolved issues, roles of the organization’s key players and stakeholders, and explain the focus of specific ethical systems. Also discussed in this paper are relevant strategies and alternatives, the effect of globalization

In my opinion there were four key causes in this disaster which were, lack of communication between BP and Transocean, multiple operations were under way simultaneous, several irregularities were already known and were failed to be looked into, and BP choose a less costly well, which came with higher risk. Helms (2015) reports that BP is worth 120.8 billion dollars

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill occurred on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. This oil spill was the largest spill in history in front of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. This oil spill released about 4.9 million barrels of oil into the ocean. This spill not only wreck havoc on the marine life but also the economic players that depended on ocean such as fisherman, tourism, and offshore drilling located along the gulf coast. Along will the spill the oil rig which was named Deepwater Horizon also went up in flames. This proved that the issue went far beyond just an oil rig that blew a line. Since this oil spill had drastic impacts all along the coast, BP which was the most liable for this incident faced criminal charges based on what happened. BP which knew the risks of deep ocean drilling failed to take the necessary safety procedures to reduce the risks of such incident occurring, thus was the reasoning behind placing most of the fault on them and not the other companies. The lack of regulatory oversight led to the issues and cost-cutting procedures opened the rig up to possible malfunctions like the one that occurred. During the spill into the gulf, BP sealed the well with cement which seemed to stop a majority of the oil from escaping the well. BP also recognized that the well was “dead” which was proven wrong when scientists still could conclude was leaking minor amounts of oil into the ocean. This spill not only proved to be harmful to the environment but also

MEJRI, Mohamed, and Daniel DE WOLF. 2013. "Crisis Management: Lessons Learnt From The BP Deepwater Horizon Spill Oil". Business Management And Strategy 4 (2): 67. doi:10.5296/bms.v4i2.4950.

7 Years ago, in the Gulf of Mexico one of the worst catastrophes that has happened in modern history, happened. Moreover, in the United States. The “BP” Gulf oil spill as you might of hear it called. Although, British Petroleum has made every possible attempt to rename the mishap. Years later this incident has had a huge impact in the local infrastructure. Furthermore, this was a compounding effect on the Gulf, 5 short years since Hurricane Katrina leveled the coast. This was just another hit to the gulf residents. The public relations of BP and this catastrophe were atrocious in the since that BP ran away from the camera while they had no possible answer as to how they were going to stop the massive spill. Another impact was sustained by the

This is apparent due to decisions that are made concerning process, equipment, and safety. During the drilling process more fluid was being removed than added. Instead of stopping the process, workers continued labor. These decisions are affected by a salient opportunity to make money, political motives, and oversight (Kanicki & Kreitz, 2010). Also an escalation of commitment bias is present which drives members of the company to continually place action into a bad situation hoping it will get better (Kanicki & Kreitz, 2010). Unfortunately for the Deepwater Horizon, the situation only got worse. The tragedy could have been avoided if the crew and management had implemented evidence-based decision making rather than the Garbage Can Model of decision making.

The fault was shared; the rig operators (Transocean), the contractor (Haliburton), and the corporation (BP) were all fined and penalized for the tragedy with charges ranging from manslaughter, misdemeanors, and felonies. The corporation had to pay back, was banned from any further contracts, and $4.525 billion in fines agreed upon by BP and Department of Justice. Was there any other cause besides negligent that cause this tragedy?

BP (British Petroleum) is one of the leading companies that are delivering energy products and services to the people around the world. In this report, we studied BP’s risk management plan for preventing oil spill. The main reason for choosing BP and its oil spill preparedness plan is that the oil companies have become increasingly vulnerable to unwillingly cause disasters and BP is one of them. An event that highlighted this vulnerability and subsequently drew attention to the need to investigate, is the BP oil spill in 2010 was one of the worst oil disasters that affected environment adversely. Issues such as these have been a serious concern for the oil companies around the world.

The government was also responsible for activating coast guards and the military in its response to the spill. Hence, the role of the US government here is crucial as a “parent” to ensure that BP acts in the welfare of its citizens.

Deepwater Horizon was the name of the oil rig that was at the center of the Macondo Well Project that led to the largest marine oil spill in the history of the United States. (Ingersoll, Locke, Reavis; 2012) The loss of life, injuries to others, and damage to environment is tragic, however the management of BP before and after the disaster was disastrous. Proper leadership before could have helped prevent the explosion and leadership after could have helped with the cleanup and containment.

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

On the 20th of April, a malfunction occurred causing an oil explosion on the Deep water Horizon rig. Crews had experienced, what would be called a triumphant evening by the rupturing blast that they just encountered. Both crews worked tireless hours up on completing the well that lies 13,000 feet beneath the floor of the ocean. The Moncondo Prospect project was caped and completed while waiting for phase two, which resulted in harvesting the oil and gas. It was stated, the problem was not in technology, but from the list of errors made by the people in the company. According to C. Hoffman (2010), “The following lessons drawn from forensic engineering should spur changes in the oil industry and government agencies that will lead to better risk assessment, more useful regulatory oversight, safer operating procedures and rapid crisis response. The blowout was a punishing lesson: 11 workers were killed and 17 injured in the accident itself. The resulting oil spill damaged the economy and environment of the entire Gulf Coast. But out of this calamity changes can come that will reduce the chances of such a tragedy occurring again, not just in deep water drilling but in other high tech, high-risk industries as well.”

In the month of April 2010, Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing 11 workers and releasing oil from the well into an ocean. This paper will discuss BP management, ethical and social behavior. BP along with a few of its partners Transocean and Halliburton was involved in the gulf oil spill. The explosion of the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon was the root cause of the oil spill. This paper will focus on BP organization behavioral issues that caused the economic, environmental, and human losses. The research further focuses on what BP leadership could have done as a precautionary measure using highest ethics and management behavior.

Cognitive bias was rampant in this situation. This type of bias results in inaccurate situational assessments and “can cause an underestimation of exposure risk and an overestimation of the capability of systems to mitigate hazards” (Spigener, 2016, p. 20). Accordingly, both Transocean and BP officials participated in ignoring warning signs. Greatly underestimated risk is evidenced by members of both organizations discussing readings that should have been red flags to one or both companies prompting them to action (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).