The British Petroleum Oil Spill and Lack of Response Essay examples

The dilemma that could be identified with the BP Oil spill is no one wanted to take the blame when it first

In 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, causing millions of barrels of crude oil to be leaked out into the Gulf of Mexico. The extensive oil spill created a lot of pollution and far-reaching effects on the tourism industry. The resultant damage to marine wildlife such as fish will continue to be felt for many years to come. Weeks after the event, and while it was still in progress, the Deep Water Horizon oil spill was being discussed as a disaster that will impact global economies, markets, and mining policies. The potential consequences included structural shifts in energy policy, insurance marketplaces and risk assessment, and financial liabilities to be incurred by BP. The law that affected the operation of BP’s business was the Clean Water Act, which regulates the discharge of pollutants in US’s waters (EPA, 2008). Following the oil spill, regulations have been put in place to regulate oil drilling operations. The Obama administration proposed new regulations on offshore oil and gas drilling. The regulation focused on oil and gas drilling companies to use stronger blowout Preventers that have the capability to close an offshore well in case a drilling breach occurred accidentally.

BP has also been accused of violating human rights. In 2005, one of BP’s refineries in Texas exploded, caused 15 deaths and 180 injuries. The explosion was largely a result of safety cuts to reduce costs (Baker et al., 2007). From 2006 to 2008, three workers were killed at BP’s Texas refinery due to equipment failure (Collette, 2008).

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred because “oil from the well shot up and out of the drill column under high pressure, extended on the drilling rig and exploded (wikipedia)”. The rig set on fire and later sank. BP, Transocean, along with government agency employer, all worked hard to avoid further spread of the oil.

The key takeaways from this case are the importance of having a decision making process in place, as well as not relying on bias to fix a situation. There should have been policies and procedures in place so that when disaster strikes there are guidelines to follow. The model for rational decision making could have been followed. The problem should have been identified, general alternative solutions should have been discussed, evaluate alternatives and select a solutions, and then finally implement and evaluate the solution that was chosen. Had BP and Transocean had effective communication the oil rig may not have caused such a disaster (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).

Simply put, BP pretended like there wasn’t a problem in the way they were handling things, and when they came under fire they would lie about it or put the blame on someone else. What they did was they tried to control the message the public was giving them via a method known as ‘corporate greenwashing’, which is a way of giving off the perception that a company’s business model is environmentally friendly, so it can be thought of as putting more money towards advertising how green a company is instead of using it to pursue such practices that would make it so. BP gambled on this and ultimately lost when the Oil Spill occurred; rather than actively doing something about it, they blamed subordinates and contractors to try and take pressure off of themselves while simultaneously showing minimal regard to the impact that their mistake had on the environment. They only made the problem of them getting a bad reputation even worse when they weren’t listening to the public and ultimately paid the price, losing $80 billion and an additional $1.3 billion on criminal

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

BP tends to make bets that others don’t which is most likely why the disastrous deep water horizon oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico five years ago. The fire burned for 36 hours while hydrocarbons leaked into the gulf before the well was sealed, unfortunately eleven individuals died. It has been difficult for BP to be the best company right now since this falling and they have been in reparation mode since this catastrophe. However, BP is now incorporating high safety and showed everyone that they are very reliable on the recovery of this hardship of BP trying to mix oil with water. BP came together to control the situation, cleanup, and diminish as much contamination as possible into the gulf. In addition, they are devoted long term to improve the Gulf of Mexico’s bionetwork and promise to be more careful so this will not happen again.

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

Recently, oil spill management has become a serious concern and subsequently, it has become a big issue as it takes a large, specifically trained team effort to solve the devastating problem. It also requires consistent efforts of the workforce. The Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico was perhaps another major contributing factor to highlighting the need for Oil Spill Management to be addressed. The director of the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement, Michael Bromwich stated that this oil spill proved that oil and gas organizations were not prepared to deal with oil spills. (Merolli, 2010).

In its Annual General Meeting in 2011, BP faced protests against BP’s executive’s remunerations and voiced their injustice (Webb & McVeigh, 2011). Facebook pages such as “Boycott BP” and RIP Spongebob, who died in an oil spill cause of BP” have been set up by activists, and have garnered 847,730 and 468,157 likes respectively (Jarvis, 2010). Hence, the impacts on these stakeholders have varying degrees, but are nonetheless affected one way or another by BP’s mistake.

Part 1 - Ethical Dilemmas- The accident elicited many feelings anger, disillusionment, disgust, and even employees feeling like they were let down because BP had not backed up its values promised to

The oil spill undermines the reputation and market position of British Petroleum, thus its stock prices decline dramatically. Even though BP took measures for resolving these problems, its way was not beneficial enough and therefore, it still requires more advantageous resolutions.

Although the accident was caused by a mechanical failure, it spiralled out of control because of an insufficient safety system. BP acted inefficiently and their carelessness cost the lives of people and damaged the environment, nevertheless this does not mean they acted in an unethical way as

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 resulted in considerable damage to the environment, economy and human livelihoods. While BP, as one of the parties involved in the operation of the oil drilling on Deepwater Horizon rig, suffered huge financial loss and reputation loss, it was found to be the one to be mostly blamed due to its lack of risk management. As poor risk management can lead to an astonishing disaster like this, it appears to be necessary for every business to learn from BP’s mistakes and try the best to prevent such disaster from happening again. This report studies this case, focusing on two issues identified in BP’s risk management practices, namely its sloppy preparation for risks and its inappropriate communication strategy after the crisis happened. No evidence showed that BP had a sufficient emergency plan for the worst-case deep-water oil spill although the depth of the oil drilling was one of the deepest. BP’s unseriousness towards safety was also indicated in their attempt to shift blames to its contractors and the unaccountability shown by the words of BP’s executives during interviews. Based on the examination of BP’s deficiency in risk management, the lessons that can be learned from it are discussed. In brief, firstly, accurate risk assessment and appropriate emergency plan should be available before the operation is started. Secondly, post-crisis communication should show the world that the company cares and is accountable