Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
An essay about social media and disaster response
Oil spill case study summary
Gulf oil spill case study
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: An essay about social media and disaster response
The British Petroleum Oil Spill and Lack of Response Last year, news spread of an oil spill off the Gulf Coast. These events occur periodically and usually register much media attention. As British Petroleum (BP) executives could not shut off the crude oil or prevent the damage it caused, people took notice. Millions of dollars in tourism, commerce and sales were lost. Thousands of wildlife acres and ecosystems were also compromised. There were more questions than answers. What BP did to alleviate growing fears made the controversy. They said there were no problems initially, then denied there were problems then they could not fix the problem. BP executives were flabbergasted regarding the intense media attention and upset after being taken to task for their incompetence. This paper will explore the issues surrounding the giant mess and what can be learned from the incident. The gulf Oil spill was bad; the company’s public relations strategy made matters worse. Their game plan was to stonewall the media, deny any responsibility and hope the issue would solve itself. Needless to say, that plan did not work—and they did not have a “Plan B.” Media outlets demanded answers from BP concerning what caused the disaster that started April 10, 2010. It became one of the worst environmental spills in U.S. history. Instead of owning up to the problem and taking responsibility, the company went on an offensive-blame-fueled binge that left those affected by the events horrified and angry. (Houpe, 2010) Instead of enlisting help, executives told people, “There’s nothing to see here, move Public Relations Theories 2 along.” BP CEO Tony Hayward, said the pipes complied with local laws and regulations. The spill itself was not the company’... ... middle of paper ... ...Oil Spill Response,” Mediashift, PBS.com, July 12, 2010. Retrieved May 3, 2011 from: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/07/5-digital-pr-lessons-from-bps-oil-spill-response193.html Cook, Phil. “Lesson with the BP oil spill: How NOT to respond to a disaster.” PhilCook.com, May 23, 2010. Retrieved May 4, 2011 from: http://philcooke.com/BP_Spill/ Houpe, Rosa “The Sticky Details: BP oil spill facts that you should not forget,” Gulf oil Spill, February 5, 2011. Retrieved May 3, 2011 from: http://www.gulfspilloil.com/the-sticky-details-bp-oil-spill-facts-that-you-should-not-forget Luce, Edward. “BP Faces Public Relations Disaster,” June 2010. Renak, Judith. “Tylenol made a hero of Johnson and Johnson: The recall that started them all,” The New York Times. March 22, 2002. Retrieved May 3, 2011 from: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/23/your-money/23iht-mjj_ed3_.html
Tylenol is part of the Johnson & Johnson Company. Once they made the connection between the report and the Tylenol they put customer safety first, before they worried about the company’s profit. The company immediately informed customers not to consume any type of Tylenol product. To throw away what they had until the extent of the tampering could be determined. Johnson and Johnson stopped all production and advertising. The recall included approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol.
At the end I come to conclusion that BP was not properly prepared for any disaster like that there risk assessment related to project is very limited and even not considered seriously about it for their own progress and putting live of public and employees in danger by not following the standard SOP of particular project. Even after incident happened they try to close their eyes on reality. The company should take this incident as alarm and should implement proper risk assessment for future and also compensate damages on ethical ground and if they counter this situation in good way their loss of bad reputation will be lesser as it predicted to be they should considered their responsibility towards society as well by doing this they not only making other people lives better but also earning good will to their company.
Weeks, Jennifer. "BP's Financial Pain From Spill Is Just Beginning." CQ Researcher 21.29 (2011): 688. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
The Ocean Ranger The Ocean Ranger was an offshore exploration oil drilling platform that sank in Canadian waters 315 kilometres southeast from St. John's Newfoundland, on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland on February 15, 1982, with 84 crewmembers onboard. The Ocean Ranger was the largest semi-submersible, offshore exploration, oil drilling platform of the day. Built in 1976 by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, it operated off the coasts of Alaska, New Jersey, Ireland, and in November 1980 moved to the Grand Banks. Since it was so big, it was considered to have the ability to drill in areas too dangerous for other rigs.
People need oil for daily life and work. Since World War II, oil had caused many serious problems in United States and throughout the world. Remarkably, economic and social problems were heightened by the emerging energy crisis. By 1974, the United States gained a third of its oil by importing from the Middle East.[ James Oakes, et al. Of The People: A History Of The United States (Oxford University Press, 2011), 881.] When the heavy war between Israel and Arabia erupted, the United States was not able to gain enough petroleum because it supported Israel. To show the dissatisfaction with the United States’ support to Israel, Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries even raised oil prices. “Overnight, OPEC raised the price of its oil from $3 to $5.11/By ”[ Merrill, Karen R.. The oil crisis of 1973-1974: a brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007, 22.] Not surprisingly, the United States was strongly affected by the oil shortage and the the high price of oil. Homes and businesses could not easily solve the serious problem. Drastic protests occurred in many states such as Arkansas, New York, and Florida because a huge number of drivers could not accept the high price of gasoline.[ Merrill, Karen R.. The oil crisis of 1973-1974: a brief history with documents, 1.] Transportation was decreased in order to use less oil. Faced to the great challenge, several presidents analyzed the seriousness about the oil crisis and provided effective ways of reducing the use of oil.
BP should have been more open with its understanding of industry practices and technology. They should have acknowledged their lack of preparedness and their poor cementing of the drilling spot. They knew the government was dependant on them for information and it appears that they took advantage to avoid blame. They should have made all their resources available to the government from day one in order to speed the clean-up efforts.
In April 2010, a gas release and consequent explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig located in the Gulf of Mexico, which BP was leasing from Transocean, a Swiss company. The explosion killed 11 workers, injured 17 others, and dumped
BP was founded in 1908 under the name Anglo-Persian Oil Company. They changed their name to British Petroleum in 1954 and merged with Amoco in 1998. (BP Public Website, 2010) “The Texas City Refinery is BP’s largest and most complex oil refinery... It was owned and operated by Amoco prior to the merger of BP and Amoco.” (Michael P. Broadribb, 2006) Throughout their history, there have been a number of accidents that have been caused by negligence and disregard of safety precautions. Unfortunately many lives have been cut short or seriously injured as a result. My research will focus on the 2005 Texas City Oil Refinery Explosion. I will attempt to look into the ethical implications that surrounded this disaster before and after the event and suggest what BP could have done to prevent the incident then and in the future.
As the world frustrated and fumbled at BP over their oil spill on April 20, 2010, the largest marine oil spill in history. Does anyone know the people of Nigeria Delta had lived with oil spillage conditions for the last 50 years? With her op-ed piece “The Oil Spill We Don’t Hear About”, published in The New York Times on June 4, 2010, Anene Ejikeme emphasizes on the oil spills in Niger Delta which is far more alarming and threatening than the BP Gulf Spillage. With her article, Ejikeme’s want to address these problems which appear to be ignored by the international media. In her article she stated, “Media around the world are covering the Gulf oil spill in a way that not even the Nigerian media covers oil spills in Nigeria.” Ejikeme adopts an informative, yet sympathetic tone to deliver and provoke the interest of the phenomenon for her readers. Ms. Ejikeme received her PhD from Columbia University in 2003 and is currently an assistant professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She is considered as a specialist on modern African history; she’s been writing a variety of books and teaching a wide range of courses on the matter. Prior to coming to Trinity, Ejikeme taught at Barnard College in New York, where she was the Director of the Pan-African Studies Program from 2001 to 2003. This op-ed piece continues her interest on the problems that affects African society.
OSHA focused a lot of resources on ensuring that BP and its contractors offered safe working conditions for thousands of employees involved in the response. It was no surprise that Federal personnel visited worksites daily, identifying hazards and means of abatement; they assessed training and programs to ensure that workers were well trained in languages they could understand (Robyn, 2011). The strict oversight that was conducted after the BP oil tragedy, helped set the tone for safe work practices nationwide and has improved working conditions for many employees around the
Most people believe that one man-made natural disaster would teach us to be better, but we have learned that history repeats itself. The Exxon Valdez oil spill (in 1989) and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, or BP oil spill, (in 2010) were both devastating oil spills that shocked the nation. The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred due to a tanker grounding. The BP oil spill was caused by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform. These two oil spills were both disasters and had greater effects in certain categories. In this essay, I will be comparing the cause of both oil spills, the damage/effect of both oil spills, and the cleanup of each oil spill.
Swift, W.H, . C.J. Touhill, W.L. Templeton, and D.P. Roseman. 1969. Oil spillage prevention, control, and restoration—state of the art and research needs. Washington, D.C.: The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, located in the Gulf of Mexico exploded killing 11 workers and injuring 17. The oil rig sank a day-and-a-half later. The spill was referred to as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP oil spill, Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and BP oil disaster. It was first said that little oil had actually leaked into the ocean but a little over a month later the estimate was 12,000-19,000 barrels of crude oil being leaked per day. Many attempts were made to stop the leak but all failed until they capped the leak on July 15, 2010, and on September 19 the federal government declared the well “effectively dead.” In the three months that it took to finally put a stop the leak, 4.9 million barrels of oil were released into the ocean. The spill caused considerable damage to marine and wildlife habitats and the Gulf’s fishing and tourism industries. The White House energy advisor, Carol Browner, goes as far to say that the Deepwater oil spill is the “worst environmental disaster the US has faced.”
Tylenol's 1982 ordeal has become a classic example of a successful crisis management. Johnson & Johnson faced a major crisis when their leading pain-killer medicine, extra-strength Tylenol, was found to have caused the fatalities of seven people in Chicago, Illinois. It was reported that unknown suspect or suspects took the product off store shelves, tampered it with deadly cyanide and returned to the shelves. As a result, seven people died and consumers lost confidence and panicked over hearing the news of this incident. Tylenol received massive media coverage which led to an expeditious communication of event to the public. Johnson & Johnson (J & J) took a huge financial hit when it had to recall and destroy approximately $100 million dollars worth of inventory in addition to the loss incurred by the company when the public reacted to the incident (Campbell et. al., n.d.). Tylenol's approach was to pull off the products as quickly as possible, stopped production, cooperated with the investigation and the media and halted all forms of advertisement or marketing of the product. Furthermore, Johnson's & Johnson's took the initiative to protect and improve their product packaging which allowed them to regain the public's confidence and paved the way for improved tamper-resistant packaging now used by myriad of manufacturing companies. The fatalities occurred between September 29th to October 1st of the year 1982 and by November, Tylenol had already reintroduced the product with improved tamper-resistant packaging. To regain the public's attention and confidence, Johnson's & Johnson's launched a dynamic marketing campaign to put the product's name before the public.
The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill accident of April 20th 2010 that caused a gas release followed by the explosion that took place causing hydro carbons to leak into the Gulf of Mexico posed a lot of strategic implications in the competence, capabilities, internal resources and Corporate Social Responsibility of BP. The implications of the Oil Spill underscores the Icarus paradox, which holds that the very capabilities that give an organization its source of competitive advantage can become constraining with changes to the external context. Teece (2009) emphasised that dynamic capabilities revolve around three generic types namely: Sensing (ability to scan, search and explore the external