Corporate Social Responsibility of BP in Gulf Oil Spill

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Recommended: Ethical issues in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

On April 20th in 2010, the deepwater horizon drilling platform of BP PLC at the Gulf of Mexico in American got blowout and burnt, which had sunk 36 hours after that with 11 persons killed and 17 persons injured. On April 24th, the oil wells out of control began to leak oil lasting for 87 days, about 4.1 million barrels of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, the pollution of which spread to coastwise 5 states. This became the worst oil spill in America history, so it was said to be a national disaster of America. The accident resulted in not only casualties, but also serious oil leakage and environmental pollution event. The blowout and the oil spill is rare in oil and gas development history, for its difficult oil spill block, huge volume of oil leak, wide influence range, and the consequence is very serious:1. The ecological environment of the Gulf of Mexico suffered serious damage as well as a major loss of coastal economy. 2. BP PLC suffered heavy losses, and the company image and performance had been seriously affected. 3. Brought new challenge to the America government response to crisis, with a negative impact on the credibility and the ruling ability of the government. At the same time, it to a certain extent affected the use of global oil resources, especially marine deepwater oil and gas development. Although the explosion, leakage and pollution and a series of accidents brought huge losses and serious effect for people life, the property of the company, and even the local people's life. However, the whole process of BP PLC dealing with the incident, in technical measures, reaction speed or even incident response taken was a success. The ethic issue refracted in this incident focuses on the corporate social responsibilit... ... middle of paper ... ...nomic. The similar crisis existed in ConocoPhillips Oil Spill was not solved as satisfactory as Gulf Oil Spill. Further more the hot topic recently of GMO food is also another case but more complicated of social responsibility. The cause for the endless crisis of corporation social responsibility is the mutual condition of desire for money and duty for society, especially the speed up of economic because of the high technology. When it comes to the ethic rules of the business runner, endless desire is the human defect we have to face with. After all, the ethic issue of corporation social responsibility will be a hot topic in long term. Works Cited 100 Days of the BP Spill: A Timeline. http://content.time.com/time/interactive/ 0,31813,2006455,00.html. Peter Lehner. What should We Learn from BP's Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico[J].World Environment,2011(3):16-18.

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