Background 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. What Happened? “On March 23, 2005, at 1:20 pm, the BP Texas City Refinery suffered one of the worst industrial disasters in recent U.S. history. Explosions and fires killed 15 people and injured another 180, alarmed the community, and resulted in financial losses exceeding $1.5 billion.” (U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, 2007) There are many small and big decisions and oversights that led to the incident. Underneath all the specific actions or inaction is a blatant disregard for addressing safety violations and procedures that had been pointed out to BP even years before this event. The use of outdated equipment and budget cuts also contributed to the circumstances that allowed this accident to happen. Progression of Events that led up to the Incident “On February 21, 2005, the Splitter was shut down for a planned temporary outage… Prior to start-up (on March 22), the ... ... middle of paper ... ...eved August 8, 2010, from BP Public Website: http://www.bp.com BP corporate document. (2005). BP Public Website. Retrieved August 6, 2010, from Code of Conduct: http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/C/coc_en_full_document.pdf Michael P. Broadribb, C. (2006). Institution of Chemical Engineers . Retrieved July 26, 2010, from IChemE: http://cms.icheme.org/mainwebsite/resources/document/lpb192pg003.pdf Pierre Thomas, Lisa A. Jones, Jack Cloherty and Jason Ryan. (May 27, 2010). BP's Dismal Safety Record. Retrieved August 6, 2010, from ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bps-dismal-safety-record/story?id=10763042 U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. (March 20, 2007). Final Investigation Report. Retrieved July 26, 2010, from U.S. Chemical and Safety Board: http://www.csb.gov/assets/document/CSBFinalReportBP.pdf
50 years and 6 months after the Texas City disaster, a lot of changes has been made to ensure the safety of handling hazardous material due to the disaster. It was a wake up call for people around the world to look deeply into the safety issues and for government to assume an active role in enforcing those issues. For the residents in Texas City who decided to stay and rebuild after the disaster, it was more than a wake up call for safety. It was a painful memory that made people even stronger. It was a call for the community to come together and make Texas city a major industrial center again. It was a joint effort to make Texas City a better and safer place to live.
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.
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)
The accident investigation indicated that BP focus on cost-cutting and high production caused the serious deterioration of safety regulations at the refinery. The spill resulted from the company’s fail...
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.
On April 20, 2010, BP’S deep water horizon drill exploded in Gulf of Mexico and this oil spill killed 11 innocent workers and caused severe damage to the environment. “It was the worst environmental disaster in US history and BP lost his reputation worldwide”. The oil spill created negative attention from media and public. BP’s “Gulf of Mexico Restoration” website uses these three strategies to try to repair its reputation: pictures of its new employees to show its dedication to creating more jobs and ensuring the safety in the company, images of emergency services and clean-up programs to show its quick responses and efforts to prevent more damages, and clear language about its legal proceedings and investigations to show its commitment to the affected people and environment.
...t occurred because there were many mistakes. Eight results were found on how the oil well exploded, and one example is the “Well control response actions failed to regain control of the well” (BP Internal Investigation 5). This is just one example of how BP made a mistake, and seven more were found. BP already had a bad name because of their past, and this major disaster was just one more on the list.
Since 2005, PBS reported of four major incidents involving BP. The first incident was an explosion that killed 15 people at BP’s Texas refinery in Texas City. BP did not replace the old blown-down drums, a safety feature, with safer, modern flares to save money. An investigation commissioned by former Secretary of State James Baker concluded that this incident was preventable and BP failed in putting safety as a priority. In the Alaska incident, 260,000 gallons of oil leaked from a BP oil pipeline on Alaska’s North Slope in March, 2006. Later investigations found that BP hired uncertified inspectors and kept records poorly. BP agreed to re-inspect 10,000 points and corrected their problems. In July of 2005, a BP oil platform, called Thunder Horse, toppled after Hurricane Dennis. After an investigation, BP found that their engineers had incorrectly installed a number of valves that supported the rig. On January 2007, the Minerals Management Service cited this accident was caused by human error (PBS). In 2010, the Deep Water Horizon rig exploded, leading to oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. Again BP is ...
The BP oil spill began on 20 April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. On April 20, 2010, 126 workers on the mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon were in the process of temporarily closing the exploratory Macondo oil well. That evening, an explosion abroad the drilling unit set off a chain of events that eventually led to the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon. Eleven crewmembers lost their lives and others were seriously injured, as fire engulfed and ultimately destroyed the rig.
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.
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.”
The April 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will forever change the way Americans view deepwater oil drilling. No one could have foreseen that BP’s well would spew into the Gulf waters for over 80 days before it was successfully capped. Over the years, many articles have been written about the disaster, and many different viewpoints given in the articles. This essay discusses the oil spill’s effect on Gulf coast animal and plant life, plus whether the government is implementing effective legislation regarding the spill.
Živković, Snežana; Takić, Ljiljana; Živković, Nenad UNAPREĐENJE EKOLOŠKIH PERFORMANSI PRIMENOM STANDARDA ISO 14001 - STUDIJA SLUČAJ.. Chemical Industry & Chemical Engineering Quarterly. 2013, Vol. 19 Issue 4, p541-552. 12p. DOI: 10.2298/CICEQ120513088Z. ,
BP spent millions of dollars per day to clean up the oil spill. It was estimated that BP was spending “$6 million a day on fixing the mess (Grant, J.K. 2011). In 2005, an explosion at BP’s Texas City oil refinery killed 15 people and injured more than180 people. The accident cost the firm US $2 billion in damages and lawsuits (Murry, B. 2010). According to the OSHA (United States Occupational safety and Health Administration) Citations 760 and 761 BP was responsible for wilful and flagrant violations of safety standards. It happened intentionally and showing indifference to its employees and are yet to pay the fines from Texas City explosion. CSR review BP Green washing Tulane Law review Dodd-Frank act whose role is to evaluate the company fraudulent claims of CSR (Cherry, M. A., & Sneirson, J. F. 2010). An approximated $134 million BP plans spend to address the damage it caused for the Deepwater Horizon Resource Damage Assessment Trustees that include to restore habitats for ospreys and other birds, protect sea turtles and rebuild fish populations ( Thompson, A. 2010). Explosion of BP refinery in Texas that caused 100 injuries and 15 deaths in 2005.Criminal charges due to spread of 270,000 gallons of crude oil in Alaskan tundra in 2006.Toxic spill of 2,000 gallons of methanol in the oil