...On March 24 1989 the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef, Alaska, spilling just over 11 million gallons of crude oil, the largest oil spill until 2010. It is argued that the response was slow and inadequate and that safety was not properly followed by the staff at Exxon. In this essay we will look at the responsibility of this accident, and how implementing the main components of an ethical corporate culture, and a code of ethics could have helped to prevent such a tragedy from occurring. Many have speculated who was at fault for this horrendous accident. The National Transportation Safety Board even determined five possible causes for the grounding: 1) The third mate failed to properly move the vessel, potentially due to fatigue and excessive workload 2) The master failed to provide proper navigation, possibly due to intoxication 3) Exxon failed to supervise the master and provide sufficient crew for EV 4) The coast guard failed to provide effective traffic system 5) Effective pilot and escort services were lacking. However it is more likely a combination of all of those factors and the fact that an ethical corporate culture and a sound code of ethics were lacking that enabled all of the above to occur and a few more, which is really to blame for this tragic accident. Only eight months prior a meeting was held where it was determined that should a large oil spill, such as this, occur that they were not properly resourced, or experienced...
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...Exxon Valdez & Prince William Sound November 16, 2012 1. What has happened to the key players since the events in this case? Since the events occurred in this case, there were many victims including wildlife & marine life, the environment, the fishermen, and the economy of the region. This event devastated the wildlife in the Prince William’s Sound by covering the natural habitat with over 11 million gallons of oil. Many wildlife species had perished during the oil spill and some have still not returned. The natural resources still have not recovered from the disaster. The fishermen, who have relied on the Prince William Sound, are still not able to make a living due to restraints placed on them by the federal government. The federal government has banned the fishing of certain species of marine life due to their slow recovery from the oil spill. Despite the money that was awarded to the victims, there still is not enough to cover the debts of the fishermen and to recover the economy. Even though Exxon agreed to plead guilty of criminal charges and to pay restitution for the damages caused, the litigation had reached the Supreme Court. This disaster had no effect on the company’s profits or stock price despite the large fines imposed. Even when damages were imposed on Exxon, with $5 billion in punitive damages, the company still continued to grow. The Supreme Court had outraged the victims by cutting the punitive damages amount of $5 billion to a minimal...
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...Exxon Valdez - Historical Development On March 24, 1989 an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California—the Exxon Valdez—struck the Bligh Reef located at Prince William Sound (PWS) in the state of Alaska. The result of this event caused upwards to 38 million gallons of crude oil to spill into Prince William Sound and eventually spreading out to 11,000 square miles of ocean as well as 1,300 miles of coastline (Newton, Dillingham, & Choly, 2006). Through a later investigation it was learned that the ship’s captain had not been at the control of the ship due to the previous night spent drinking; the Exxon Shipping Company failed in its supervision as well as a failure to provide a rested crew sufficient in numbers to operate the ship; a failure of the ship’s third mate to appropriately maneuver the ship, which may have been due to an excessive workload or fatigue; and a failure on the part of the Exxon Shipping Company to maintain the ship’s Raytheon Collision Avoidance System (RACAS), which would have warned ship’s crew of an eminent collision (Newton, et al., 2006). As noted by Peterson, et al. (2003) the consequences of the spill were largely predictable and based upon lessons learned from previous oil spills, “Because marine mammals and seabirds require routine contact with the sea surface, these taxa experience high risk from floating oil” (p. 2082). However, the ecological damage inflicted upon animal life within PWS was no less than devastating. Approximately 250,000 seabird...
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...I. SUMMARY/SYNTHESIS • The Exxon Valdez tanker tore itself open in a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and spilled more than 10 million gallons of crude oil on March 24, 1989. • Lawrence Rawl, the CEO of Exxon, stayed out of the public’s view for nearly a week which caused the publics to be antagonized and cause him to be seen as just an insensitive spoiler in the environment. • At the Exxon’s shareholder’s meeting on May 1989, he faced angry stakeholders and demonstrations that some demanded for resignation and suggested that he donate some of his $1.4 million annual salary to the clean-up. • Trying to limit the damage to its corporate image, the public relations staff of the company found itself playing catch-up with the press. They disseminated pictures showing Exxon volunteers rescuing sea otters and birds affected by the oil spill. • Exxon tried to win friends and influence but they were just criticized, which ended them to make life more difficult for the company because of the strategies. Networks also refused to at least create the impression of conflict of interest for the company. II. ANALYSIS The inappropriate and negative response Exxon did was that they did not take the full responsibility of the damage they have done. Exxon did not show compassion, as if the crisis was not important at all and just sent some other representative to speak for the company rather than the CEO. They failed to show a good public relations...
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...Exxon Valdez Oil Spill of 1989 Isaac Mitchell Maine Maritime Academy The Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 occurred in Prince William Sound off the coast of southwestern Alaska. The date when the oil tanker ran aground was March 24th, 1989. It struck Bligh Reef at about 12:04 a.m. There have been various estimates of how much oil spilled into the ocean. A total of 11 million US gallons was a commonly accepted estimate of the spill’s volume, used by the State of Alaska’s Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club ("Questions and answers," 1990). Other groups, such as Defenders of Wildlife, question the official estimates, maintaining that the volume of the spill went underreported (DeVries, Luts, 2004). Alternative calculations, based on an assumption that the seawater rather than oil drained from the damaged tanks, estimate the total to have been 25 to 32 million US gallons (Bluemink, 2010). Because of the spill many practices were going to change in the shipping industry. The Exxon Valdez oil spill drastically changed the United States’ shipping regulations, policies, and documentation. The Exxon Valdez damaged eight of its eleven tanks on board, spilling 11 million gallons of its 53 million gallon cargo of oil. Those 11 million gallons would spread and ultimately impact over 1,100 miles of non-continuous coastline in Alaska, making the Exxon Valdez oil spill the...
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...and Johnson & Exxon Lucille Marjorie C. Curitana BMC I-2 Prof. Hero Hernandez Background Information Oriental Nicety, 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...
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...residents near the waters of Prince William Sound awoke to the catastrophe brought by the tanker Exxon Valdez spilling more than 10 million gallons of crude oil. This incident caught the attention of the public and received many and different criticisms. Eight of eleven cargo tanks were ruptured during the incident. ARLIS or Alaska Resources Library and Information Services with the help of Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council released a collection of materials on Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. It included the following information: * The crude oil spread approximately 1, 300 miles. 200 miles were heavily oiled. The impact was obvious while the remaining 1, 100 miles were lightly or very lightly oiled. * Aerial observations were used to determine the size of the oil spill to give immediate response and clean-up activities. It includes the estimation of the thickness and volume of oil on the water. * Exxon spent more than $2.5 billion on clean-up expenses. * Caption Joseph Hazelwood was the captain of the ship, a senior officer. He was convicted of a misdemeanour charge of negligent discharge of oil, fined $50, 00 and sentenced to 1, 000 hours of community service. * Exxon was fined $150 million, it was the largest fine imposed for an environmental crime. The court forgave $125 million in acknowledging Exxon’s cooperation in cleaning up the spill. During the clean-up, Exxon hired thousands of workers through several companies. There were more than 11, 000 workers, 1...
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...The Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker, thought to be carrying 200 million litres (53 million gallons) of crude oil, en route to Long Beach, California when it ran aground on the Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska on the 24th March 1989 in turn causing the ship to spill 43 million litres (11 million gallons) of its crude oil into the sea. The oil, originally extracted at the Prudhoe Bay oil field, eventually covered 1,300 miles of coastline and 11,000 square miles of ocean. The captain of the ship, Joseph Hazelwood, was said to be drinking heavily on the night that the ship struck the reef. He gave orders to the pilot, Harry Claar, to take the Exxon Valdez out of the shipping lanes to avoid far reaching ice. After doing this however, Hazelwood handed the controls of the ship to the inexperienced and fatigued Third Mate Gregory Cousins, giving him instructions to turn the ship back into the shipping lanes when the tanker reached a certain point, unbeknown to him that the ship was left in autopilot. At that time, the pilot was replaced by Helmsman Robert Kagan and Captain Hazelwood also returned to his quarters to rest. The Third Mate and the Helmsman were unable to make the manoeuvre to return into the shipping lanes as the ship was still on auto pilot, and therefore the tanker continued until it had hit the reef. During the time of accident, Exxon Valdez was carrying 200 million litres of crude oil, out of which it spilled around 40 million litres into the sea. As a result...
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...I - Background Study EXXON VALDEZ CASE Companies would always be prone to crises and problems beyond their control. What makes a company stand; amidst all problems they are dealing with is how they deal with it. One of the greatest controversies during the 1980’s was the Exxon Valdez oil spill that happened on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The Exxon Valdez ship had identified icebergs and decided to take a different route to get around them. Unfortunately the oil tanker crashed into shallow water, this area is actually called the Bligh Reef, but because of the hit the tanker had about 10 million gallons of crude oil into the reef.This catastrophe got the media’s attention, and Exxon’s response to the environmental damage they had caused was very unprofessional. The company completely refused to communicate openly and effectively. The CEO of the company, Lawrence Rawl even refused to be seen for almost a week. Efforts to contain the spill were slow and Exxon's response was even slower. Because of the lack of appearance from high profile personnel from Exxon and the lack of action from their company, it left the impression that the Exxon Corporation did not take this accident seriously. Exxon Valdez case became one of the classical case examples of a “not to do in handling with a crisis”. By the time, they started to do some action; their reputation is already tainted with negative comments from...
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...The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill happened in 1989. The American Oil Tanker Exxon Valdez crashed into the Bligh Reef causing an oil leakage. The Exxon Mobil’s Company response to the oil leakage responded by giving 3.5 Billion Dollars from the companies bank account. However the company only spent 2.1 Billion Dollars of the 3.5 Billion Dollars actually for them to clean up the oil spill. Exxon and the Government ordered investigations of the disaster because of how much money was given to clean up the oil spill. In doing so NOAA officially were brought in and were shown that most of the cleanup was the caused by the operation following the disaster. NOAA stands for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It was claimed that pressure - washing...
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...STUDY ANALYSIS: EXXON VALDEZ OIL SPILL Submitted by: Chaira Mae C. Aguilar Submitted to: Prof. ROEL S. RAMIREZ, APR January 11, 2016 I. SUMMARY and SYNTHESIZE In March 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez underwent an accident in Prince William Sound in Alaska. This accident resulted in a massive oil spill, where more than 10 million gallons of crude oil leaked into the sea. Exxon’s problems were worse by its lack of preparation and bravery in dealing with the situation. Lawrence Rawl, CEO, stayed out of the public view for almost a week after the incident happened. After a meeting, he faced the demonstrators and stakeholders. He took all the responsibility and promised an investigation. Facts According to Office of Response and Restoration, with this banishment institutionalized in U.S. law, Exxon Shipping Company shifted the operational area to the Mediterranean and Middle East and renamed it. In 1993, Exxon spun off its shipping arm to a subsidiary, Sea River Maritime, Inc., and Exxon Mediterranean became the Sea River (S/R( Mediterranean. In 2002, the ship was re-assigned to Asian routes and then temporarily mothballed in an undisclosed location. According to The Whole Truth, Exxon, along with the rest of the oil industry knew that navigating a large supertanker through the icy and treacherous waters of Prince William Sound was extremely complicated. Armed with this knowledge the oil companies promised to use great care to avoid a spill. Exxon broke the said...
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...Rawl, chairman and chief executive of the Exxon Corpoation was in his kitchen sipping coffee when the phone rang and received the news regarding the spilling of crude oil into the frigid waters of Prince William Sound, just outside the harbor of Valdez, Alaska. What was about to happen was the worst environmental disaster in the history of the United States. These were the documented facts that media had portrayed across the United States and to the world: Exxon Valdez, a 978-foot tanker piloted by a captain whom later revealed to be drank, ran aground on a reef 25 miles southwest of the port of Valdez. The results caused a spill of 250,000 barrels, the largest spill ever in North America. The devastating results affects, 1,300 square miles of water, damaging some 600 miles of coastline and murdering as many as 4,000 Alaskan sea otters. The disaster also enshrined the name of Exxon in the all-time Public Relations Hall of Shame. (Seitel, 2000). According to the book, Exxon’s dilemma broke down into five categories. First was the hesitation of Mr. Rawl if he is going directly and personally to Alaska. In an interview Mr. Rawl has said, “We had concluded that there was simply too much for me to coordinate from New York. It wouldn’t have made any difference if I showed up and made a speech in the town forum. I wasn’t going to spend the summer there; I had other things to do”. Secondly, Exxon failed to establish media control. Exxon, wanted to take charge of the news flow and...
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...1989: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Abstract: A tanker filled to capacity with crude oil ran aground and ruptured yesterday 25 miles from the southern end of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, spewing her cargo into water rich in marine life. (Shabecoff, 1989) THE BACK STORY THE TRANS-ALASKA PIPELINE SYSTEM After oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay on the northern coast of Alaska in 1968, the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company was formed by the owner companies: BP Exploration, ARCO, Exxon, Mobil, Amerada Hess, Phillips, and Union. Alyeska determined that the most economic method of transporting oil from Prudhoe Bay to the U.S. west coast was oil transport through a pipeline from the bay to Valdez, followed by oil tanker transport south. President Richard Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act on November 16, 1973. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) consists of an extensive 800 mile pipeline (Figure 6.1), 11 pump stations, and an oil terminal at Valdez; it cost more than $8 billion to build (USDIBLM, 2005). 75 OIL SPILL PREPAREDNESS At the time of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, six contingency plans were in place to coordinate oil spill response efforts. On the national level, the National Response Team (NRT) provided national support for response actions related to oil discharges and hazardous substance releases. NRT supported emergency responders at all levels by means of technical expertise and equipment, assisted in the development of training, coordinated responses...
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...I. Background Information/ Additional Perspectives A. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill March 24, 1989 marked the date of the largest oil tanker spill in the history of United States as the tanker Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. This incident put Exxon into a crisis as it made the Alaskan region into a worldwide symbol of environmental chaos. The enormity of the ecological ruin and the phenomenal task of cleanup caught the attention of the many nations. Many workers and volunteers flooded the area for its restoration which required extensive labor and $2.1 billion of Exxon funding. The crisis is blamed to the following reasons: the faults were Exxon’s inadequate equipments on the ship and the insufficient number of trained members. Another thing is that a crew was unable to maneuver the ship properly due to exhaustion with work aboard. It was also traced that Captain Joseph Hazelwood was under the influence of alcohol which was the reason why he cannot give proper instructions to the staff. Hazelwood's activities in town and on the ship are the main focuses of the investigation. This also became the basis of widespread media sensation. Indeed, Exxon’s reputation suffered severely. Some Public Relation Practitioners said that Exxon seriously worsened the damage to the public due to its slow and insufficient responses. Exxon also failed to establish itself as a company concerned about the problems it had caused....
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...Oil spills: The Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989 was one of the worst oil spills in history. In the Niger Delta, there has been an Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years. This gives the Niger Delta the unpleasant honor of being one of the most polluted places on earth. More than 70 percent of the people of the Niger Delta rely on natural resources. They are fishermen and farmers. In 2011 the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) documented the consequences of oil pollution in Ogoniland, one part of the delta severely damaged by spills. UNEP found that people in Ogoniland have lived with chronic pollution all their lives. They found benzene levels 900 times higher than the World Health Organization recommendations. And they found oil in...
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