Deepwater Horizon explosion (April 2010) -Transocean Company - Essay Example

This resulted to the loss of about five billion oil barrels through spillage but luckily, the situation was contained in 15th of July 2010. The discharge of crude oil had many negative effects such as damaging fisheries and their habitats as well as disrupting the economy (Guttry, 291). The oil spill, which is termed as the largest in the history of America, resulted to the damage of property worth forty billion US dollars. Since the damage was so big, it attracted the president’s attention where he responded by appointing a commission to inquire the causes of the spill (Guttry, 291).

Reports state that even after the several response actions taken to control the impacts of explosion, the well in the Gulf of Mexico is still leaking. Although the estimated leaking rate is three million liters per day, some scientists argue that it is higher. The restriction by the government for scientists to establish the effects of the spill has raised ethical issues of government providing information to the public. Ethical questions that were raised concerned the effect that the spill had on the eco system for example, the seabirds could be poisoned.

In terms of legal, it was clear that the wild animals did not have any form of legal protection after the oil spill. Even though the major goal of any business is to make profit, it also has the right of making sure that its actions conform to the expectations of the society in terms of law and ethical custom (Halbert, 11). The Transocean Company should also put in place a number of safety measures that protects the environment in the event of fire or oil spill. After the explosion, company was also unable to pay dividends to the shareholders and many investors lost trust in the company during the year 2011 (Halbert, 13).

The tourism business of Florida was affected negatively and the repair measures by the company could not restore the tourist attraction sceneries damaged by the oil spill (Halbert, 17). The company’s reputation was also damaged to the potential investors and to the society when they realized that the operations of the company were not inclined towards ensuring safety to its workers and the environment. After the explosion, the US president issued a drilling moratorium to regulate the drilling operations.

The Energy National Board, which is located in Canada, also made it mandatory that all the drilling companies should produce their set of defined safety measures as a process of controlling oil spill damages. Moreover, the National Contingency plan (NCP) was enforced whose role is to provide the federal actions in response to an oil spill (Hagerty, 07). The response action could be the demand of the company responsible for oil spill to compensate the affected parties. Since the disaster of oil spill was one of the greatest in the US history, the event attracted a number of responses and reactions from the government, private companies, and Non-profit making organizations.

As required by the government, the Transocean committed itself to pay twenty billion US dollars as a way of settling the claims resulting from the damages caused by oil spill. The major damages caused by the oil spill were on property, physical injuries and even death of the workers (Guttry 293). It is therefore evident that the drilling operations in deep water are very risky and the government as well as the industry should make safety of the workers