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Bp & Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

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Submitted By sukar
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During April 2010, BP was involved in the largest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The spill brought about plenty of pollution to the marine wildlife and destroyed Gulf’s fishing and tourism industries. Accordingly, the government established a panel to look into the accident. The investigation result indicated that the accident was unavoidable because of serious of blunders involved in drilling the well. In this essay, I will examine the communication problem that occurred and explore key causes and symptoms related to the problem.
Bad management and communication breakdown by BP and its partners are partly to blame for the oil disaster. However, it was BP who was the main culprit for failing to ensure its cost cutting measures did not further increase risks in a dangerous environment. All involved companies were struggling with poor communication between each other, as they failed to share important information. One of the major questions being asked was who was in charge of the command portion of the operations. Some assumed it was BP and its partners while others concluded it to be the government. This confusion lead to all parties pointing the finger at each other rather than finding a plan to control the situation.
One of the causes for the oil spill was an engineering one, as many equipments were failed to be inspected on schedule. Poor communication was another cause, as no one had a big picture of what was going on. No structure or plan was put in place to diffuse the situation. It is apparent that the cause of the oil spill was more of a engineering problem. In order to properly communicate, BP needed to first solve the engineering issue. Its second step should have been to inform the public in a consistent and timely manner about what was happening.
Some key symptoms closely related to the BP oil spill include health issues, marine

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