When an environmental disaster occurs, like massive ocean oil leaks, it should be considered if the company and government employees responsible of taking the decisions acted correctly and therefore, the disaster could not have been avoided. “The Deepwater Horizon disaster is [has been] confirmed as the biggest ever accidental release of oil into the oceans” (Black, 2010, para. 1). This issue has been controversial and much disputed among the last few years; however, there has not been much discussion about the ethical values and behavior of the company. The Government should take action against BP and its executives because the company is acting unethically trying to evade its responsibilities and the consequences of the disaster. It is illicit to make as much money as one can in a business without a care for the environment. Moreover, BP has not accomplished the ethical values that has announced and its Chief executive has been acting unethically-
BP is acting unethically trying to evade its responsibilities and the consequences of the disaster. The arguments heard from the company to explain the possible causes of the oil rig explosion are quite different from those which correspond to most the trusted people like congressmen or researchers.
Transocean and BP carried out investigations to determine the cause of the explosion. The chief executive of Transocean, Steve Newman, stated that the explosion had occurred due to a failure of the casing or/and the cement and added that without a failure of one of those elements, the explosion could not have occurred. Both investigated the type of cement used in the well, BP investigators concluding that the problem was the nitrogen-foamed cement that had been used, but instead of takin...
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...ing about $118,000 in costs.
Works Cited
Black, R. (2010, August 10). Gulf oil leak: Biggest ever, but how bad?. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10851837
BP chief Tony Hayward 'set to stand down'. (2010, July 26). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10757751
BP oil disaster (2012, February 8). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special_reports/oil_disaster/
Kroh, K., & Conathan, M. (2012, April 19). The Lasting Impact of Deepwater Horizon: Five Reasons We Can’t Forget About the BP Oil Spill. Center for American Progress. Retrieved from http://www.americanprogress.org
Cocales, Brett & Brian, Morel. 2010. BP Email Exchange about Centralizers- Committee on Energy Commerce, p. 2. http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100614/BPApril16.Email.exchange.about.centralizers.pdf
Shabecoff, Philip. “U.S. Asks Exxon for $20 Million to Access Spill Damage in Alaska.”New York Times [New York] 18 January 1990: B4.
The BP oil spill began with the explosion of the mobile offshore drilling unit known as the Deepwater Horizon, then operating in the Macondo Prospect Oil Field some 60 kilometers off the coast of the U.S. state of Louisiana, on April 29, 2010. The leak was capped on July 15, 2010, with a repair to the underwater wellhead ruptured by the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Thus, the BP oil spill lasted for about three months. During this time, roughly 5 million barrels of crude oil leaked from the wellhead into the Gulf of Mexico. The flow rate was not uniform, beginning...
Ethical issues in this case are the impact on tourism industry of Gulf of Mexico and its beaches, unemployment around area because of closure of business, wildlife and the environment destruction and concerned with human health and post incident trauma. It has been almost year but world is still recovering from the devastation of disastrous oil spill. It destroyed the environment and wildlife all over the place and its total impact is still unknown. Environmental impacts may be noticeable for years to come.
Smith Jr., Lawrence C., L. Murphy Smith, and Paul A. Ashcroft. "Analysis Of Environmental And Economic Damages From British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill." Albany Law Review 74.1 (2011): 563-585.Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
for the workers of the company. All the blame is not due to poor design and construction flaws, but to the oil companies for not teaching the employees about the system. This disaster could have been prevented if the engineers and oil companies were not blinded by their ignorant beliefs that the Ocean Ranger was unsinkable. Citations 1. http://www.canadianheritage.org/reproductions/21050.htm.
This is not the first time that BP is at fault. They have had criminal convictions in places such as Endicott Bay in Alaska, Texas City and Prudhoe Bay. Jeanne Pascal was a part of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and was assigned to watch over BP. Pascal was watching over companies such as BP that were facing debarment. Under her watch, BP was charged with four federal crimes. Over the past twelve years, Pascal’s seen BP patterns as misconducts. She attempted to warn the government about BP’s safety and environmental issues that would most likely lead to another disaster. While she was watching over BP, the company misinformed and misled her about things that resulted to the felonies that they have committed. Sensing that some things were not right about the company, she presented a case of their unsafe working environments.
In 1914 the British government became the company’s principal stockholder and over the years was usually the largest single stockholder. Effective January 1, 1955, British Petroleum became a holding company. In the beginning of the 1977 the British government reduced its ownership of BP by selling shares to the public, and in the late 1980s the government turned over BP entirely to private ownership by selling its remaining shares of the company. In 1987 BP acquired the remainder of the Standard Oil Company for almost $8 billion reinforcing its position as one of the largest oil companies in the world.
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.
Saundry, Peter. "Exxon Valdez oil spill." Exxon Valdez oil spill. 9 June 2010. The Encyclopedia
" Oil is the life blood of our modern industrial society. It fuels the machines and lubricates the wheels of the world’s production. But when that vital resource is out of control, it can destroy marine life and devastate the environment and economy of an entire region…. The plain facts are that the technology of oil-- its extraction, its transport, its refinery and use-- has outpaced laws to control that technology and prevent oil from polluting the environment…" (Max, 1969). Oil in its many forms has become one of the necessities of modern industrial life. Under control, and serving its intended purpose, oil is efficient, versatile, and productive. On the other hand, when oil becomes out of control, it can be one of the most devastating substances in the environment. When spilled in water, it spreads for miles around leaving a black memory behind (Stanley, 1969).
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.”
So the Carbide investigators disproves the theory. Instead Carbide scientists felt the only way that an amount of water sufficient to cause the observed reaction could have entered the tank was through accidental or deliberate connection of a water hose to the piping that led directly into the tank. Carbide investigators then did a thorough interviews with the plant’s employee and careful examination of plant records along with physical evidence led them to conclude that the cause of the gas leak was sabotage by a disgruntled employee who intentionally hooked a water hose to the tank. From here on we can see whether its an employee ill intention to blame for the whole accident or whether the gas tank model was defective in design because its safety standards were lower than similar Carbide plants in the United States. It conclude that Carbide had consciously permitted inadequate safety standards to exist. Indian prosecutors argued that the managers of UCIL were criminally
On a Monday afternoon, A couple of friends and I drove about forty-five minutes to El Dorado to see a movie. A movie in which we didn’t know anything about. None of us had even seen the trailer. I sent my friend a link to the movies that were showing at the cinema in El Dorado, and she had chosen Deepwater Horizon solely on the fact she liked the actors that had been cast for the movie. A few of these actors included Mark Wahlberg and Kate Hudson. Deepwater Horizon, as I came to find out on the car ride there, is about the most devastating oil spill in United States history. Since this event occurred only roughly six years ago, I recognized it after my friend called it the BP oil spill. Growing up in south Arkansas, I know many people that work on oil rigs so the spill was something that came close to home. The movie portrays the events leading up to the rig explosion and the aftermath concerning the people aboard the rig.
Mast, Tom R. Over a Barrel: A Simple Guide to the Oil Shortage. Austin: Hayden, 2005. Print.
1. What external environment (general, industry and competitive) segments do you think BP considered or did not consider prior to their drilling off the Gulf coast. What should the wedding business owners now consider in their external environment?