...As the world's population rises at a rapid rate of close to 80 million annually, there becomes an increasing demand for energy resources such as oil. In order to compensate, there are an increased amount of oil rigs in difficult to access areas which question the common good as we need the energy resources but also pose a potential threat to the environment. In relation to the Montara oil spill, the company associated are a Thai based company called PTTEP (PTT Exploration and Production Public Company). Due to the significant oil spill and the geographic location, this had a drastic effect on the operations of the company, the role of the Australian government and the livelihood and wellbeing of the people of West Timor. This essay will explore the three perspectives outlined and how this incident directly effected them. Furthermore, in light of the analysis of the perspectives and the relevant principles of human flourishing, we will be able to outline how the common good is best achieved. As previously discussed, the Montara...
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...The BP Oil Spill, which is also called the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and the Macondo blowout, started on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. It happened when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded due to methane gas that escaped from the well and caused a blowout. After the rig sank, the oil gusher located on the sea floor pumped up oil for 87 days until July 15, 2010, when a new oil well cap was installed and halted the flow. The BP Oil Spill is considered to be the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. According to a report by the U.S. government, the oil spill resulted to the release of 4.9 million barrels of oil (equivalent to 210 million U.S. gallons). This large amount of oil has caused to intense environmental effects, which include: Increased deaths and health problems in animals A couple of months after the oil...
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...Ethics in the Workplace Case Study: BP Oil Spill 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 on the choice of preferred alternatives, the most valid alternative and resolution recommendations, and an example of a successful implementation of the solution. Symptoms of the Problem Natural disasters or any disaster of any kind is hard to manage just for the purpose that these is no real planning for the situation and there is no real way to say who is in charge when a disaster happens. Concerning the oil spill with British Petroleum (BP) symptoms for the situation was that there was a delayed response, the impact on the environment and the citizens, federal regulations were lax, and the recovery efforts were not adequate. According to Griggs (2011), OPA 90 is a federal statute that holds all the responsible parties in containment, clean-up...
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...Nov 2015. Essay Number Two In 2015, the world and environment can be considered to be in the worse shape it has ever been in during human existence. We’ve passed laws to fix this by preventing big business from ruining our environment, but we have yet to face the real problem. Our consumerism mentality has put the consumer’s desires before the health of the environment therefore our environment is suffering for the happiness of the consumer. It is impossible to place the blame of the state of the environment on one person or one group of people, when there are multiple factors contributing to how the environment has ended up in this state. The real problem is that nothing is being done about...
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...far away from criticism is the oil and gas industry. Over the course of this essay, we will explore BP, its stakeholders, some of their criticisms, and BP’s response to those criticisms. BP, formerly British Petroleum, is the fourth largest oil and gas companies in the world in terms of revenue and sixth based on production. (Statista, 2015) (Forbes, 2015) Although BP doesn’t have an official mission statement, the company does have a few statements entitled “Our Values”, “Clear Priorities”, and “Our strategy and sustainability”. BP (2015) states, “We have five values that express our shared understanding of what we believe, how we aim to behave and what we aspire to be as an organization.” Those five values include safety, respect, excellence, courage, and one team. “Clear Priorities” (2015) details three main topics that top the company’s interests including: safe, reliable and compliant operations; disciplined financial choices; and competitive project execution. Thirdly, BP has a commitment to sustainability and states (2015), “We believe that the best way for BP to achieve sustainable success is by acting in the long-term interests of our shareholders, our partners and society.” The three pillars augment the lack of a mission statement and express BP’s commitments and responsibilities. Several stakeholders have been identified by BP including employees, shareholders and analysts, governments and regulators, others in the oil and gas industry, contractors and...
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...Stephanie Angulo AC1408307 SC260.2.1 Introduction to Ecology Assignment 8: Ecological Crisis of the BP Oil Spill April 25th 2015 On April 20th, 2010, a massive offshore drilling rig, formal known as the Deepwater Horizon, exploded and set fire. The explosion caused oil pipes to burst and spill thousands of barrels of oil into the Golf of Mexico. According to Do Something, an environmental website, have reported the death and injury of 28, more than 8,000 animals dead within six months, and 16,000 miles of coastline pollution (11 facts about BP oil spill). The BP oil spill has since became one of the worst ecological disaster in America's history. People living near the coast line has been affected due to polluted air and water. Many children had been sick and they had problem breathing fresh air. There were several issues with this oil spill: professional issues, ethics and new technology issues, legal, regulatory and political, safety issues, and environmental issues. If BP would have taken care of all these issues there had been no oil spill. The oil spill is the result of a series of events that eventually led to tens of thousands of barrels of petroleum to be leaked into the gulf. In September, BP released a report that analyzed the events leading up to the incident. The report shows that the fire was caused by a release of hydrocarbons from the well, and them onto the oil rig (BP internal investgation team) The Deepwater horizon was equipped with fail-safe mechanisms in...
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...Jacob Koslakiewicz Phil 221 (Business Ethics) Prof. Leeds BP Oil Spill In this essay I will discuss one of the largest class-action settlements ever. It was also the nations worst offshore oil spill in history. Lastly, everyone in the region was directly affected by BP negligence . The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP Oil spill started on April 20th , 2010. It began when pressure from a well a mile below the ocean blew up a massive drilling rig. Unfortunately, the oil spill killed 11 men and left 17 injured and many others were affected by the spewing oil that was in the sea for over 85 days. It was successfully sealed when engineers finally closed the cap on July 15th stopping the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill was running across the Northern Gulf of Mexico between the mouth of the Mississippi River and Florida. The Deepwater Horizon well was leaking 5,000 barrels per day, 13,000 feet under the seabed. This threatened the coastlines, shut down fishing across the affected areas, and was damaging habitats and animals were in jeopardy. This was a major problem because the majority of the community where the spill was affecting rely off of the revenue from the water and fishing. Many people in these communities have lost their jobs due to the spill, many business that have been passed down generation to generation are gone and may never come back to this region. People in these areas are really affected by BP negligence...
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...British Petroleum’s Deep Water Horizon rig explosion infested the Gulf of Mexico, its surrounding coastline, and its inhabitants. The U.S. officials have labeled this incident as an accident. However, preceding events suggest otherwise. A causal argument attempts to demonstrate the believed relationship between actions and certain results. Due to neglect and financial greed, the livelihood of thousands was threatened. Transocean Ltd is the world's largest offshore drilling contractor. It rents floating mobile drill rigs, equipment, and personnel to oil and gas companies. The Deep Water Horizon oilrig was owned by Transocean and leased to BP when the explosion occurred. For three months oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico. Remote causes are events in the past that link to the future. An example of this in the case of the BP oil spill was the diminished work level of the organization that looks over the proper management of oilrigs. Due to the continual persuasion by profit-driven US corporate and financial elite, US government made it acceptable for the required work level of Mineral Management Service (MMS) to dwindle between 2005 and 2009. As a result, the safety regulations for workers and the environment were left up to drilling organizations. The lack of a constraining factor to stabilize safety resulted in negligence as the drilling companies found it cheaper and more convenient to assume that all operations were going well. As a result, the effectiveness of the rig blow...
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...formerly Exxon Valdez ("valdez" pronounced val-deez), Exxon Mediterranean, SeaRiver Mediterranean, S/R Mediterranean, Mediterranean, and Dong Fang Ocean is an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Soundspilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil in Alaska. On March 24, 1989, while owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company, and captained by Joseph Hazelwood bound for Long Beach, California, the vessel ran aground on the Bligh Reef resulting in the second largest oil spill in United States history. The size of the spill is estimated at 40,900 to 120,000 m3 (10,800,000 to 32,000,000 US gal), or 257,000 to 750,000 barrels. In 1989, Exxon Valdez oil spill was listed as the 54th largest spill in history. The tanker is 301 meters long, 50 meters wide, 26 meters depth (987 ft, 166 ft, 88 ft), weighing 30,000 tons empty and powered by a23.60 MW (31,650 shp) diesel engine. The ship can transport up to 235,000 m³ (1.48 million barrels / 200,000 t) at a sustained speed of30 km/h (16.25 knots). Its hull design is of the single-hull type. It was built by National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego, California. A relatively new tanker at the time of the spill, she was delivered to Exxon in December 1986. An oil tanker from Exxon which named Exxon Valdez happened oil spill crisis on Friday, March 24, 1989. At that moment, Exxon was ranked in the top five largest companies in America. Its CEO was Lawrence G. Rawl. He disliked...
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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...
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...Topic: An analysis of the corporate social responsibility demonstrated by BP in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico | | | | | 9/15/2010 | | ------------------------------------------------- Topic: An analysis of the corporate social responsibility demonstrated by BP in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico SECTION 1: Introduction The explosion on the Deepwater Horizontal rig on 20 April 2010 led to a serious consequence. A large area of oil spill spread through the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, this accident killed 11 people. (BP Global, 2010) Generally speaking, BP on the surface achieve the highest level of CSR, the discretionary responsibility which is the highest level in the pyramid of CSR. It includes economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic (discretionary) responsibilities (From bottom to the top) (Carroll, 1999, as cited by Lindgreen, et al, 2009). However, comments from the public and the US government appear to be unsatisfactory to the action taken by BP in this case. This essay will analysis the social responsibility demonstrated by BP by first looking at three journal articles from 2000 to 2010 written by Bird, Hall, Momente and Reggiani (2007); Shen and Chang (2009); and Udayasankar (2008), to further elaborate the insights in the articles and the academic theories into the application of the oil spill case in the Gulf of Mexico SECTION 2: Corporate Social Responsibility Article one Bird, Hall, Momente and Reggiani (2007) examine in...
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...profit-maximising and cost-minimisation objectives have raised ethical concerns, such as pollution, child labour, workers’ salary below minimum wage, over working hours, welfare discrimination, etc. This essay is going to discuss the recent case of “BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico” in 2010 that has got many attentions of countries and international actors including some INGOs and WTO. The US president Barrack Obama has compared the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to the September 11 terrorist attacks as he began a tour of the region: "In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come”, said Obama (Telegraph, 2010). We will use the four well-known moral frameworks discussed throughout the semester (utilitarianism, contractualism, ethics of virtue and deontology) to analyse why and how heavy the impact that disaster had on society under different points of view across international actors and the BP company itself. I. The Facts On April 20, 2010, the methane gas from the well, under high pressure, shot all the way up and out of the drill column, expanded onto the platform, and exploded. According to the global views, BP’s oil spill in Mexico was the biggest and the worst environmental disaster in the petroleum industry (even worse than 1989 Exxon Valdez Case). The explosion polluted hundreds of miles of coast, seriously...
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...KENSINGTON COLLEG OF BUSINESS AND UNIVERSITY OF WALES BP Market Analysis and Strategic Marketing Recommendations In the USA after the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill Nahid Mohsen Pour 2/28/2011 Contains: 2962 words Without charts, content, references, tables In this essay, I am performing Macro environmental analysis of BP business in the USA, after the gulf of Mexico oil spill, and also try to give Strategic Marketing recommendations to recover from the so called “Marketing disaster in the USA market” Nahid Mohsen Pour Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 4 Approach ............................................................................................................................................. 4 Importance of Marketing ..................................................................................................................... 4 Part I: Macro Environmental Analysis of BP business in the USA after the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill ............ 5 Political Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 5 Economical Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 5 Social Analysis..........................................................................
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...The Unsafe Culture of BP The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been called the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. The British Petroleum Company (BP) gulf spill started in April of 2010, and was first contained in July of 2010; it took the company 2 months to actually start the process of containing the spill. The Associated Press and The New York Times, reported that a total of 94 to 184 million gallons of oil were unleashed on the shores off the Gulf. This disaster has caused controversial topics to arise as to what the BP company is doing in preventing these disasters or if they are even taking any precaution to that notion. Critics say that BP has had a very bad track record when it comes to safety. It is a risky company that has grown too fast. They have had accidents like the one of BP’s most troubled refineries, which lies, in the State of Texas, which also had its fair share of explosions. BP now faces the largest liabilities in corporate history. All of what BP seems to be doing is shutting their workers mouths with money they cannot refuse but money that has no affect on the company’s profits. BP must change their culture of deadly accidents, disastrous oil spills, and countless safety violations. The Texas BP refinery had an “accident” in 2005 where 15 people died in an explosion and fire, 170 others where injured. Afterwards there were charges that BP management valued profits more than safety. BP acquired the 12,000-acre refinery in 1999 as part of...
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...1. Introduction This report will identify a crisis facing BP company, the Gulf of Mexico spill, and investigate how the organization response to the society. In this report, it will use Legitimacy theory to explain BP’s response to this event. Legitimacy theory can be treated as a explanation for voluntary corporate disclosures in annual report. As (Dowling&Pfeffer, 1975) says a corporation must act in congruence with norms and society value. First of all, Legitimacy theory is based on the concept of substantive rationality and replies upon the notion of a social contract. This theory asserts that organizations seek to ensure that they operate within the bounds and norms of their respective societies (Ramon Mullerat, 2010) .It aims to conform to norms and value of society. As a company, it always use annual report to legitimize the ongoing operation, however, in common situations, it often discloses good news, but its actual behaviors decline which is called legitimacy gap. 2. The case 2.1 Context In April 20, 2010, a semi-submersible drilling platform belongs to BP occurred explosion in American Mexico gulf. It caused 11people die and 17 people injured after 36 hours (CBC News, 2010). BP Company announced that it wills to response for this event. The Gulf of Mexico spill has become the worst environmental crisis in America. Except the direct cost, it will also attack people’s life, such as air and water safe. At the same time, it is a huge disaster for seaside...
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