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 The use of outdated equipment and budget cuts also contributed to the circumstances that allowed this accident to happen.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
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States of America. This tropical storm rendered much of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama a flooded wasteland; in particular, Memorial Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana was sequestered by the floods, leaving hundreds of patients, staff, and visitors without vital resources. Electricity was cut off, and the internal temperatures reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, as reported by journalist Sheri Fink (2009). Staff attempted to evacuate the hospital, carrying patients one-by-one down many flights of stairs. Several patients died during this evacuation. In the wake of the flood, it was discovered that 45 patients of Memorial Hospital had perished, and that 23 of these deaths were attributed to a lethal dose of Versed or morphine. Dr Anna Pou, a surgeon on duty during the disaster, was accused of euthanizing these patients during
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The United States Enrichment Corporation (Producer). (2013). USEC issues WARN act notices to Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.usec.com/news/usec-issues-warn-act-notices-paducah-gaseous-diffusion-plant-workers
We thank the University of Oklahoma and the chemistry faculty for providing the space, instructions, and equipment for the development of this report and experiment.
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.
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.
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.
Accidents are an inevitable part of life. Children learn this at an early age by bumping their head, scraping their knees, or falling off the swings. They learn that sometimes painful experiences just happen, seemingly without cause or reason. These children carry these lessons into adulthood, and then project their tolerance for accidents onto their families and occupation. The chemical industry, while one of the safest industries, has the potential for catastrophic accidents. Through experience and renewed focus on the conservation of life, the chemical industry has improved its safety considerably. In 2005, chemical industry fatality rate (the number of fatalities per year per total number of people in the applicable population) was the third lowest when compared to industries such as agriculture, coal mining, and construction1. However, accidents still occur, sometimes with regrettable repercussions. In 2005, Formosa Plastics Corporation in Point Comfort, Texas experienced an accident with severe consequences.
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.”
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Winston A, 2010, Five Lessons from the BP Oil Spill, Harvard Business Review, accessed 1 April 2014,
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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.