n this last section of my report I will be focusing on the BP oil spill and the ethical concerns that different communities will face when BP (British Petroleum) are operating near them. To begin with,
I will first of all be examining the ethical concerns of the communities in which a selected business operates (P4); the company that I have chosen for this last task is BP.plc.
On the 20th of April, 2010, the oil rig known as Deep-water Horizon had a major malfunction which caused a blowout; a blowout being a combination of mud, oil natural gas and water erupting from the well which then would surge up the drill pipe which when it met the surface, caused it to ignite and thus setting of an explosion – causing what happened in the picture below. The oil rig did have blowout preventers but both the manual and automatic blowout preventers failed to deploy; this being due to
BOP’s having a history of failing. It has been stated that earlier that year that a couple of blowout valves had ruptured and broken down on reportedly 14 other oil rigs.
Although the BOP’s are a 640,000 pound steel plate that is fixture on top of the well mouth, which can use over onemillion pounds of force to block violent emissions, it appears that this is not enough to protect oil rigs from blowouts that will cause devastating damage.
As a result of this explosion, not only did 11 employees lose their life during the Deep-water Horizon blowout but it also caused millions of gallons of oil to be spilt into the surrounding environment
(with 5,000 barrels worth of oil flowing into the sea with every passing day). Due to the nature of this disaster, the oil spill caused severe damage to the environment, the eco-systems within it and the wildlife too. Major clean-up projects were soon put into action which involved cleaning up the shores, beaches, coastlines (etc.) that had oil