...BP bears brunt of blame for the deepwater horizon catastrophe for Report says oil company is 'ultimately responsible' for oil spill but rig contractors also implicated in some areas BP’s share prices rose almost 5% but fell back after report was published Photograph: Molly Riley/REUTERS A key US federal report has focused the blame for the worst offshore oil spill in US history on BP, but criticised its contractors sufficiently for the markets to push BP's share price up. Amid a string of failures, BP's "cost or time-saving decisions… were contributing causes of the blowout," the report concluded. Assigning ultimate responsibility for the disaster – and the billions of dollars of clean-up and compensation costs – will take years of legal action, but Wednesday's investigation report was seen as a significant indicator as it was conducted by the regulator responsible for offshore activities. The blowout at the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 killed 11 people and led to almost 5 million barrels of oil being spilt into the ocean. BP's share price rose almost 5% in London on rumours the report would help avert the company being found grossly negligent in future, which would increase its financial liabilities hugely. But it fell back after the report was published, finishing the day up 3.5% at 395.1p. The investigation, jointly conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (Boemre) and the US Coast Guard, stated that a...
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...BP Deepwater Horizon Accident Part 1(week 4) A Study of Strategic Implications of the Recent BP Deepwater Horizon Accident Date: Submitted by: Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed Student ID Number: H00032634 Chapter 1 Introduction History of British Petroleum (BP) Company British Petroleum is one of the oldest companies in the oil industry. According to BP Global (2010b), the company was founded in the year 1909 in the UK under the name Anglo-Persian Company. Later, in the year 1954, the company changed its name to British Petroleum (BP). Being in the gas and oil industry, BP conducts various operations including exploration and refining of oil among others. According to BP Global (2010), Bp is the largest energy company globally with presence in over 100 countries. Overview of the Deepwater Horizon Accident In the year 2010, BP experienced a Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster which involved gas release and subsequent explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. According to Webb (2010), the fire lasted for 36 hours and this was followed by leaking of hydrocarbon into the Gulf for eighty-seven days. BP admitted responsibility explaining that the accident occurred following loss of control related to pressure within the well blowouts in which a special type of is designed to keep constant pressure. Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon accident This tragedy impacted immensely on various BP stakeholders i.e. local communities, global customers...
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...10-110 Rev. April 3, 2012 BP and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster of 2010 Christina Ingersoll, Richard M. Locke, Cate Reavis When he woke up on Tuesday, April 20, 2010, Mike Williams already knew the standard procedure for jumping from a 33,000 ton oil rig: “Reach your hand around your life jacket, grab your ear, take one step off, look straight ahead, and fall.”1 This would prove to be important knowledge later that night when an emergency announcement was issued over the rig’s PA system. Williams was the chief electronics technician for Transocean, a U.S.-owned, Switzerland-based oil industry support company that specialized in deep water drilling equipment. The company’s $560 million Deepwater Horizon rig was in the Gulf of Mexico working on the Macondo well. British Petroleum (BP) held the rights to explore the well and had leased the rig, along with its crew, from Transocean. Of the 126 people aboard the Deepwater Horizon, 79 were from Transocean, seven were from BP, and the rest were from other firms including Anadarko, Halliburton, and M-1 Swaco, a subsidiary of Schlumberger. Managing electronics on the Deepwater Horizon had inured Williams to emergency alarms. Gas levels had been running high enough to prohibit any “hot” work such as welding or wiring that could cause sparks. Normally, the alarm system would have gone off with gas levels as high as they were. However, the alarms had been disabled in order to prevent false alarms from waking people in the middle of...
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...considerado uno de los ecosistemas más productivos en el planeta ()por su gran diversidad en especies marinas y sus cantidades de arrecifes que mantienen un equilibrio en el ecosistema marino de la zona. El accidente se dio el yacimiento Macondo, propiedad de una de las petroleras más grandes y reconocidas en todo el mundo, la British Petroleum (BP). Esta empresa es dueña de reconocidas marcas como Castrol y tiene oficinas en muchos países del mundo incluyendo una sucursal en Colombia. Las causas del accidente en la plataforma se le atribuye a una falla hidráulica en uno de los componentes más importantes de la estructura, lo que provocó la explosión, el posterior incendio y finalmente el hundimiento que aparte de iniciar el derrame de crudo cobró la vida de más de diez trabajadores que se encontraban en la plataforma. Más allá de las causas o fallas técnicas y de los posibles errores humanos que provocaron el derrame del golfo, este incidente tiene por detrás errores administrativos que de haber sido tenidos en cuenta, y de haber actuado a tiempo, se hubiera podido prevenir ya que el problema empezó desde las mismas oficinas de la BP, donde una mala decisión pudo terminar en incidentes como el ocurrido en el Golfo de México. El objetivo en este informe, es hacer una minuciosa investigación de cuáles fueron los...
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...A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BP OIL SPILL RESPONSE AND PREPAREDNESS PLAN FOR THE DEEP HORIZON – WHY DID IT FAIL? Toni Josina Elfrieda Beukes* May 2012† ABSTRACT: Based on events that unfolded in the U.S. in the weeks and subsequently months of the Macondo well blow-out, it is clear that neither industry nor government was equipped to deal with a spill the scale and complexity of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. As one of its key recommendations to President Obama for addressing the causes and consequences of the spill, the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in its final report, stated the need for “strengthening oil spill response, planning and capacity”. Industry best practice dictates that quickness and accuracy are key requirements for effective oil spill response and preparedness planning (OSRPP); yet it took nearly three months to seal the Macondo well. This paper is accordingly concerned with the reasons for the apparent failure of the BP oil spill response plan. This failure will be considered in light of current international environmental regulations on OSRPP and applicable United States legislation, whilst assessing the BP oil spill response plan’s compliance therewith. The study will also consider some theory in the development of OSRPP by looking specifically at risk assessment tools and applying key criteria to the BP oil spill response plan to determine its adequacy and appropriateness for its operations in the GOM. What...
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...Ethics Case Analysis BP BP Struggles to Resolve Sustainability Disaster Case Summary: The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 is the worst oil spill in US history. Initial claims on the scope of the spill, as released by BP, was that 5,000 barrels per day were being released into the water, although they stated they had no way of precisely measuring the spill. Outside analysts have stated that between 54,000 and 84,000 barrels per day were leaking into the area. This estimate has been largely supported and accepted. The spill lasted for 87 days before workers finally sealed the leak, but by that time, more than 4 million barrels of oil had been released into the gulf. The BP oilrig, owned by Transocean, Deepwater Horizon had been in operation in the Gulf of Mexico since February 2001. The rig was valued at more than $560 million dollars and worked on many different wells in the gulf. The last well it operated on was the Macondo well. It was this well that the oil spill came from and was brought about by several preventable errors on the part of BP and Transocean management and employees. The Deepwater Horizon vessel was an exploratory rig assigned the duty of finding oil, reporting it, and capping the well for another extracting type rig to come in and harvest the oil. While drilling the well, the rig encountered pockets of natural gas buildups where it was drilling. A week prior to the fatal explosion, Horizon encountered one of these pockets and the natural...
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...Compare and contrast the way Transocean and BP describe the incident chronology of the actual events leading up to and immediately following the blow out and explosions on the Deepwater Horizon. Answer: My first thoughts after I read both incident chronology’s, to compare and contrast the way Transocean and BP describe the incidents, is that BP or Transocean do not take ownership of the incident nor do either want to not acknowledge wrongdoing of any aspect of event. Transocean points the finger at BP and BP’s chronology seems to minimize their part. Transocean chronology begins on 4/14/2013, and ends 4/20/2013, while BP’s chronology begins on 10/6/2009, and ends 5/5/2013. The obvious differences in the incident chronologies are the BP incident chronology is longer, but does not have as much finger pointing and is not as interesting as Transocean’s. BP makes up for this in their “Accident Analysis” sections, but their chronology sticks to logs and facts compared to Transocean’s more narrative approach. BP uses bullet points at the beginning of their chronology and a dressed up spreadsheet with short descriptions of each timeline event. Transocean chronology is more descriptive and colorful. They use their incident chronology as a sounding board for all of BP’s shortcomings during the entire project. The use this section to minimize their involvement in the project. They use the chronology express “BP’s direction” and “BP’s poor decisions” during their involvement...
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...org/est Oil Biodegradation and Bioremediation: A Tale of the Two Worst Spills in U.S. History Ronald M. Atlas* University of Louisville, Louisville Kentucky 40292, United States Terry C. Hazen Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States ABSTRACT: The devastating environmental impacts of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and its media notoriety made it a frequent comparison to the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the popular press in 2010, even though the nature of the two spills and the environments impacted were vastly di erent. Fortunately, unlike higher organisms that are adversely impacted by oil spills, microorganisms are able to consume petroleum hydrocarbons. These oil degrading indigenous microorganisms played a signi cant role in reducing the overall environmental impact of both the Exxon Valdez and BP Deepwater Horizon oil spills. ’ INTRODUCTION TO BIODEGRADATION OF PETROLEUM HYDROCARBONS Petroleum hydrocarbons in crude oils, such as those released into marine ecosystems by the Exxon Valdez and BP Deepwater Horizon spills, are natural products derived from aquatic algae laid down between 180 and 85 million years ago. Crude oils, composed mostly of diverse aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, regularly escape into the environment from underground reservoirs. Because petroleum hydrocarbons occur naturally in all marine environments, there has been time for numerous diverse microorganisms to evolve the capability of utilizing hydrocarbons...
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...Final Report on the Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout Deepwater Horizon Study Group March 1, 2011 The Deepwater Horizon Study Group (DHSG) was formed by members of the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management (CCRM) in May 2010 in response to the blowout of the Macondo well on April 20, 2010. A fundamental premise in the DHSG work is: we look back to understand the why‘s and how‘s of this disaster so we can better understand how best to go forward. The goal of the DHSG work is defining how to best move forward – assessing what major steps are needed to develop our national oil and gas resources in a reliable, responsible, and accountable manner. Deepwater Horizon Study Group Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout Disaster This Page Intentionally Left Blank Deepwater Horizon Study Group Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout Disaster In Memoriam Jason Anderson Senior tool pusher Dewey Revette Driller Stephen Curtis Assistant driller Donald Clark Assistant driller Dale Burkeen Crane operator Karl Kleppinger Roughneck Adam Weise Roughneck Shane Roshto Roughneck Wyatt Kemp Derrick man Gordon Jones Mud engineer Blair Manuel Mud engineer 1 Deepwater Horizon Study Group Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout Disaster In Memoriam The Environment 2 Deepwater Horizon Study Group Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout Disaster Table of Contents In Memoriam....................................................................
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...Responsibility, Course 2016 FE1 EDHEC Nice Tutorial 3 BP, Deepwater and Sustainability Reporting The Deepwater Horizon oil rig fire and explosion on April 20, 2010, killed 11 men and caused one of the largest marine oil spills in history. The leak from the undersea well flowed for 87 days and polluted an estimated 68,000 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico waters and nearly 500 miles of coastline from Louisiana to Florida. At the moment of the accident BP was the leaseholder and operator of the Maconda well located off the coast of Louisiana. The company was ultimately responsible for conducting operations there safely and in respect of the environment. BP hired Transocean Ltd (the owner of the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon) to provide the vessel and drilling crew to implement BP’s operations of the Maconda well. 1 Investigations established that bad management on the Deepwater Horizon resulted in poor safety on the rig. The US chemical safety board concludes that a last-ditch safety device on the underwater well had multiple failures and wasn't tested properly. It found that the cause of the initial explosion involved multiple screw-ups with cement, drilling mud, fluid pressure, botched tests, management problems and poor decisions. The blowout preventer sealed the well temporarily, but then it failed and that caused the massive spill. 1 For a description of BP’s implication in the Deepwater Horizon accident you can also read Cherry and Sneirson (2011)...
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...referred to as the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill or Deepwater Horizon oil spill, took place in the Gulf of Mexico and started due to “well integrity failure” on BP’s Deepwater Horizon oilrig. A “blowout preventer,” the device that seals the well in situations such as this, failed to engage. The failure led to hydrocarbons uncontrollably shooting up the well, triggering a chain of explosions. These explosions not only killed 11 BP personnel, but also unleashed over four million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico (Bryant 2011). The leak took three months to stop, despite a variety of attempts, before BP finally capped it off on July 15th, 2010 (Adams and Gabbert 2010). In response to the crisis BP launched a website to present itself and its responses in a positive manner. BP’s “Gulf of Mexico Restoration” website uses these three strategies to try to repair its reputation: BP uses vibrant images of beaches and aquatic habitats to visually demonstrate its progress toward restoring the environment affected by the Deepwater Horizon accident; chronicles its accomplishments of restoring the Gulf of Mexico using sizeable headliners and captions, and provides a timeline of expenditures to display its financial commitment to revamping the damaged region. BP uses stunning pictures of restored beaches and enhanced aquatic habitats to express its commitment to rectifying all damages the oil spill had on people and their communities. BP scattered pictures of gorgeous shorelines...
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...BP: Marketing Case Study Sarah Allen, Matthew Earhart, Amelia Pye I. Case Summary BP plc, formerly known as British Petroleum and Anglo-Persian Oil Company, is a multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England (“BP”). It is the fifth-largest company in the world measured by 2012 revenues (BP Annual Report 51). Its extensive corporate history has created a non-malleable image and reputation which present-day marketing strategies must overcome in order to effectively promote the ideals of industry leadership and ethical responsibility. BP is faced with significant challenges to its brand as a consequence of its widely-known safety and environmental policy issues. An explosion at one of its Texas refineries caused fifteen deaths, 170 injuries, and a violation of the Clean Air Act in 2005. Years of neglecting pipeline corrosion led to its violation of the Clean Water Act in 2006 when Alaskan oil pipelines leaked crude oil into the tundra. The following year, another BP spill occurred near Prudhoe Bay, leaking toxic chemicals into the tundra and thus killing wildlife and vegetation (“BP Gulf Coast Disaster and Recovery”). These incidents, however, were dwarfed by an explosion at BP’s Gulf of Mexico offshore drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon, in April 2010. The explosion caused the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. It resulted in the deaths of eleven people and the release of an estimated 210 million gallons...
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...contrast the way Transocean and BP describe the incidents, is that BP or Transocean do not take ownership of the incident nor do either want to not acknowledge wrongdoing of any aspect of event. Transocean points the finger at BP and BP’s chronology seems to minimize their part. Transocean chronology begins on 4/14/2013, and ends 4/20/2013, while BP’s chronology begins on 10/6/2009, and ends 5/5/2013. The obvious differences in the incident chronologies are the BP incident chronology is longer, but does not have as much finger pointing and is not as interesting as Transocean’s. BP makes up for this in their “Accident Analysis” sections, but their chronology sticks to logs and facts compared to Transocean’s more narrative approach. BP uses bullet points at the beginning of their chronology and a dressed up spreadsheet with short descriptions of each timeline event. Transocean chronology is more descriptive and colorful. They use their incident chronology as a sounding board for all of BP’s shortcomings during the entire project. The use this section to minimize their involvement in the project. They use the chronology express “BP’s direction” and “BP’s poor decisions” during their involvement with them during the project. The Deepwater Horizon, which was owned and operated by Transocean and had been under contract to BP, proves they were in this together, yet both want to distance themselves from the catastrophe. BP’s Deepwater Horizon Accident Report seems to get...
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...Crisis Panel BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill British Petroleum is a multinational company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. BP dedicates to find, extract, transport, and commercialize oil and gas. BP is the fourth largest global energy company in the world and it is the largest producer of oil and gas in the United States with headquarters in Houston Texas. Since BP started operating in United States has been involved in many environmental and safety scandals. The most recent incident is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico near the Louisiana coast. It is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and it has created a huge damage in the environment. In the morning of April 20, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon exploded; there were 126 members on the platform when fire engulfed the platform, although most of the workers escaped the rig by lifeboat and were subsequently evacuated by boat or airlifted by helicopter for medical treatment; however, eleven workers were never found despite a three-day Coast Guard search operation, and are presumed to have died in the explosion. The fire on the platform lasted for 36 hours and ended by the Deepwater Horizon sank. Two days later after the explosion a large oil slick was discovered at the former side of the platform, it was confirmed that a damaged wellhead was leaking. BP estimated the worst case flow at 162,000 barrels per day. Initial estimates by Coast Guard and BP officials, based...
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...British Petroleum Communication Problems inside BP Submitted by: Date: December 4, 2014 Memo 12/4/14 Jeff Lewis Metropolitan State University of Denver 890 Auraria Parkway Denver, CO 80204 Dear Jeff: Enclosed is my report on British Petroleum and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This report shows how BP cut corners to expedite construction and save millions of dollars. As a result, the biggest oil spill in United States occurred. Due to the reckless conduct of BP, the corners cut by the people in charge ended up costing them billions of dollars as well as endangering the habitat and wildlife in the area. After reading this report you will realize BP’s CEO Tony Hayward, all the way down to the engineers in charge of everyday operations were to blame for the worse oil tragedy in our history. Sincerely, Executive Summary This is a report on how British Petroleum has failed in many areas of business communications. It’s going to include 3 main points that will explain in detail on how British Petroleum had bad communication and how it ended up creating history’s biggest oil spill in the United States in the Gulf of Mexico. The 3 main points include: 1. Pre-Event Planning a. Anticipate, Prepare, Practice b. “Safety” Not a Core Value c. Responsibility of Employees 2. Expressing Concern and Wrongful Focus a. Slow in Expressing Concern b. Lack of Sympathy to...
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