The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill was the largest and most catastrophic scandal of the company to this day. Not only was it the largest scandal for BP, but it is also ranked the number two largest oil spill recorded in history. An astonishing 210 million gallons of oil spread 2,500 to 68,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico. It all started when BP contracted out to Transocean to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. BP chose a spot that was supposed to be rich in oil and was rushing on a deadline and budget that they needed to meet. It is due to BP’s lack of risk analysis, following procedures, and cutting corners that 11 people were killed and 17 more were injured.
On April 20, 2010 an explosion on the Transocean Oil Rig occurred mainly due to BP not keeping up with design and procedure standards. Caleb Holloway, a survivor of this horrific event explains to Kyle Thiermann, a journalist for Seeker's, the real life events that occurred. "We did everything we could to get as many people off of there and to try to salvage what we could
…show more content…
He did this by taking the risk of infuriating his own city in order to put international relations first and sympathize with the exasperation of the White House. Although the Prime Minister made efforts to sooth things over, BP was held to maximum punishments that the court would allow for. They were “charged with 11 counts of felony manslaughter, one count of felony obstruction of Congress, a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1505, and violations of the Clean Water and Migratory Bird Treaty Acts” (cfpub.epa.gov, 2013). This totaled $4 billion in criminal fines and penalties. BP was also sentenced to 60 months of probation and had to pay another $20 billion into a special cleanup fund. This event caused massive tension with the UK and the company itself. The issues are still being resolved to this
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...
the Environmental Protection Agency ordered General Electric Co. to spend $460 million to dredge PCBs it had dumped into the Hudson River in the past, perhaps the Bush administration's boldest environmental action to date. The decision was bitterly opposed by the company, but hailed by national conservation groups and many prominent and prosperous residents of the picturesque Hudson River Valley.
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.
However, the cleanup process for both spills were drastically different, and it lead to a completely different result. For the Sea Empress spill, people were dedicated to the cleaning up straight away, whereas in the BP spill, the company just neglected it and resorted to ignorant tactics such as throwing garbage in the sea in hope for it to suck up the oil, which didn’t work as they had hoped. As explained before, the Sea Empress didn’t have a drastically negative impact on the impact, but the BP oil spill left a huge scar on the environment and prevalent. Up to this day, oil is still found in the Bahamas and also in the fats of the fish that inhabit. The BP company itself weren’t responsible for the clean up, as they paid the government to do all the cleaning up. There are many criticisms towards BP. Many of the major oil companies that operate in the Gulf of Mexico distanced themselves from BP and criticized the design of Macondo well which was the initial reason for the
I agree with the article when it says he meant well, however some comments he made were not worded the best and he stumbled a lot which hurt BP's reputation as well as his own. Instead of expressing his compassion and sympathy towards the victims, the CEO took too lightly to the situation and even minimized its severity. He was selfish saying he wanted his life back and went to sail on his yacht, leaving the company high and dry on the crisis. They should have directed him to be more concerned and compassionate about the victims of the oild spill. In fact, they should have made sure that he showed that he cared more. Furthermo...
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.
Experts say the many deaths could have been prevented with better safety training and better safety precautions. Since then new and old rules have been enforced. During the late 1980's the federal and provincial governments installed boards to regulate offshore oil and gas. These boards required anyone visiting the rigs to have minimum safety...
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.
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.
He wasn’t smart enough to lead a crime of this magnitude. With a quick temper and wanting to make some extra cash, it was determined he had partners. As his accomplices came to his defense on the oil rig, there was another problem brewing off site. One more person was involved and he had intentions of blowing up the rig to small pieces.
The Exxon Valdez and the BP oil spill were caused by different disasters but had just as great of effects. On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil spill began to reek havoc on the Pacific Ocean. The oil tanker, Exxon Valdez, left from Valdez, Alaska and was headed for Los Angeles, California. The tanker ran aground on Bligh Reef in Alaska. After six hours of being grounded, the Exxon Valdez spilled about 10.9 million gallons of oil (53 million gallons aboard). The BP oil spill occurred a little differently. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded and caused the largest marine oil spill in history. The platform sank about 5,000 feet underwater. The BP oil spill poured 4.2 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. These oil spills are largely compared but were cause by completely different events. They had similar effects/damage, however.
Nelson, A.N. 1971. Effects of oil on marine plants and animals. London: Institute of Petroleum.
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.”
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.
It was believed that it would be cheaper for PG&E to dispose of the chemicals illegally since the company officials were more concerned with the profits than about people's lives. The hiding of this critical information had tragic consequences for the people involved. PG&E must have realized that they were guilty since they settled the case for $330 million in private arbitration. All in all, it probably ended up costing PG&E more money than it would have if they had properly lined the water pools and taken care of things the correct way in the beginning.