The BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico - Research Paper Example

? BP Oil Spill Introduction Technology has been affecting our lives and speeding them up for quite a few decades since the industrial revolution. Its influence is apparent in every area of like and it has totally changed the way people live in this world. A field of life that has especially been affected by this technological advancement is the field of commerce, which has not only speeded up business but also introduced it to a completely new direction. However, this speeding up of the commerce world has led to a disastrous outcome, which is that more importance is now attached to factors like investment and return, and businesspeople now shun the importance of ethics in business; a change which is visible on a global scale. In particular, this paper includes discussion and evaluation of different aspects of BP Oil Spill to identify ethical issues related to it and lessons that can come from it. Alongside these factors, there are also the numerous risks that each business faces, whether it is through competition, emerging firms, varying economic factors or the fluctuating exchange rates of currencies that account for a major part of the company’s business. To understand risk, one has to acknowledge what it means in true business. In the world of commerce, it mean that there is an existing probability that a particular step or decision leads to an undesirable impact, such as loss of valuable resources, or failure to accomplish the desired goal (Great Britain, pp.1). It exists in all businesses, and dealing with them is the main part of an entrepreneur’s job, even if the degree of risk involved can vary from business to business. This variation is the main reason why ethics are not receiving the same amount of importance as before in several businesses, who seem accustomed to following unethical procedures in their businesses. During the earlier part of the last century, businesses faced higher risks due to the manual nature of the work they did. This does not exist currently, however, where risk can be measured quite accurately due to the technologies present. British Petroleum (BP) is one of the highest-ranking companies in the world, which started as a local oil company. Nowadays, BP is famous worldwide for its success as an oil and gas company providing its service globally. A few years ago, it executed one of its large projects names ‘Deepwater Horizon’, on the Gulf of Mexico (Miller, et. al., pp. 15-97). This led to the oil spill and explosion, which happened on April 20, 2010, a disaster, which the world remembers as the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill (Miller, et. al., pp. 15-97). Some major victims of this spill were marine creatures who had their homes and habitats destroyed by the spilled oil in the sea. The cause of this spill was the failure to keep the gas pressure in the well under control, which further led to the blowout preventer malfunctioning, resulting in the disastrous oil spill. After a conflagration, the rig was swallowed by the sea, leading to the oil seeping out, and continuing for three straight months before the company was able to seal the well and stop it. Several millions of barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf, killing several human beings, marine animals and destroying a famed tourist location and the homes of thousands of marine animals (Miller, et. al., pp. 15-97). Observations In particular, BP Oil Spill resulted in a number of unethical outcomes that affected the human society environmentally, economically, as well as socially. One significant adverse impact that the spill had was ecological damage killing an unimaginable amount of marine life, including animals, plants, and corals, and it was mainly “whales, dolphins, turtles, beach mice, birds, fish, corals, and many others” (King, pp. 3-10) who became victim to the spill. The cause of this was when the operators lost control of the gas pressure in the well. This led to a massive leaking of gas into the water, which decreased the oxygen level in it and created poisonous substances that harmed the creatures living in the water. In addition, as experts report, the chemicals the damage control team used to remedy the affects of the oil spill became part of the problem as they broke the oil molecules down into smaller particles, which the marine animals consumed and died from. Their dying was not the only problem, because if they had survived and been eaten by human beings, those humans would have been poisoned. Another such threat to the humans was the increased levels of cancer because of the complex organic compounds that were resultantly present in the Gulf. Due to their consumption of the affected marine life, they consumed carcinogenic substances, which brought them under high risk of tumors and even cancer. One controlling effect was that the temperature of the water at the Gulf, which was helpful in reducing the adverse effects of the spill. However, it still caused major damage due to the low levels of oxygen and high levels of poisonous hydrocarbons in the Gulf. BP dedicated funds of billions of dollars to the rehabilitation of the affected locals, and even the people who assisted the authorities in the oil cleanup (Corn, pp. 9-12); however, such attempts did not cover BP’s unethical approaches that it took to reduce the costs without having a concern of unethical and adverse environmental outcomes. According to research, one relatively unknown fact about the BP oil spill may be that it was not the first oil spill to occur at the Gulf of Mexico, but one of many. However, it was largely disastrous and led to several deaths. BP should treat this incident as a learning experience, and always remember the reality of failures. In addition, they should more widely explore the prevention of further oil spills, especially since OSRA starts to become a primary approach when initiating oil-drilling plans. This approach would be very helpful to BP in avoiding further accidents and oil pollution. Additionally, such companies could employ the sophisticated technology available to calculate the risk of oil spill risks, so that they could accordingly prepare themselves for such occurrences (Cheremisinoff & Davletshin, pp.419-428). In particular, in order to evaluate such incident philosophically, it is very imperative to consider an ethical theory, and Utilitarianism (Mill, pp. 53-61) is one of the ethical approaches that allow experts and individuals to analyze modern-day situations in a philosophical and debatable manner. Specifically, Utilitarianism uses the imperative factor of consequentialism to provide the assessment results regarding ethical or unethical nature of an incident/issue. In addition, Utilitarians focus on the actions that cause goodness or benefits for majority of the stakeholders, and thus, from the point of view of Utilitarianism, BP Oil Spill truly stands as an unethical incident that resulted in adverse outcomes on the human society environmentally, economically, as well as sociologically. While focusing on past trends of the BP to evaluate ethical or unethical status of company’s actions, it is an observation that BP’s activities were truly unethical, as reports have indicated one million dollar rent of the rig that was truthfully an attempt of savings profits. In particular, the company avoided putting serious efforts to recognize potential risks of the incident on majority of the stakeholders (Ramseur, pp. 23-29). In the modern society, it is the right of every organization to acquire higher profits; however, every individual and organization has some responsibilities to take care of the fair competition, as well as environment in the surroundings. However, due to lack of focus, the devastation was huge that resulted in loss of few workers, which followed with the spill of millions of oil causing damage to the ecology and economy of the region and the stakeholders worldwide. Solutions & Recommendations Although several unethical practices of the British Petroleum (Lehner & Deans, pp. 56-60) resulted in one of the biggest devastating incidents of the international petroleum industry, however, it is very imperative that the BP, as well as other business organizations should take some notes from this incident. In this regard, they should make efforts to ensure security and safety of majority of the stakeholders that will be a way to ensure ethical nature of the business activities. Although this was the most disturbing and adverse incident, however, experts believe that BP can benefit from this incident by preventing things that caused this oil spill in the future oil-drilling projects. In this regard, the foremost thing that should be of the utmost importance is recognition of environmental and sociological factors that play a significant role in every oil-drilling project, as identification of this factors will enable the BP in ensuring their safety in the future, thus, fulfilling criteria of the ethical theory under consideration. In addition, reports of the BP oil spill have pointed out that besides affecting the marine life, the oil spill caused harmful impact on a huge population living near the incident, and thus, it is very important that the company select locations while considering the risks associated with it. From this perspective, a location far from the human population will be ethically correct; however, it may increase costs to a higher extent but it will ensure ethical fulfillment that now stands as the most important requisite after this devastating incident of the BP. Experts believe that BP will have to work on the risk management aspect of its operations, and there is an urgent need of backup plans to establish recognition of known risks and possible consequences (NC-BP, pp. 56-67). From different sources (Freudenburg & Gramling, pp. 48, 171-190), it is evident that the British Petroleum truly compromised on different safety-related aspects of the project to reduce costs and increase profits, and thus, BP and similar companies will have to bring an alteration in their perspectives According to the sources, it came into conclusion that British Petroleum compromised on the quality and safety of the project in order to save the time and money, therefore, BP should avoid such attitudes that may lead to huge losses like those that they faced in deepwater horizon (Freudenburg & Gramling, pp. 48, 171-190). Furthermore, several debates regarding risk management policies have recommended different training programs for the personnel involved in different projects of such nature. In particular, such training programs will enable the workers to identify cause of the problem, and more importantly, its consequences, as non-recognition of the environmental and economical consequences was one of the major reasons that took BP almost three months to resolve this issue causing huge adverse outcomes. Lastly, to conclude, one must state that the organizations are not responsible for such unethical actions alone, as there have been unethical actions from the government and other authorities as well, and all indicate towards profitable intentions of the stakeholders. Therefore, it is very imperative that there should be a change in intentions and plans of the governments as well that will be very effective in keeping a check on the business organizations that often take advantage of different loopholes to increase their profits. Works Cited Cheremisinoff, Nicholas P., Davletshin, Anton. Emergency Response Management of Offshore Oil Spills: Guidelines for Emergency Responders. John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Corn, Lynne. Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Coastal Wetland and Wildlife Impacts and Response. DIANE Publishing, 2010. Eccleston, Charles H. Environmental Impact Assessment: A Guide to Best Professional Practices. CRC Press, 2011. Freudenburg, William, Gramling, Robert. Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America. MIT Press, 2010. Great Britain. Management of risk: guidance for practitioners. TSO, 2007. King, Rawle O. Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster: Risk, Recovery, and Insurance Implications. DIANE Publishing, 2010. Lehner, Peter, Deans, Bob. Deepwater Horizon: The Oil Disaster, Its Aftermath, and Our Future. OR Books, 2010. Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Hackett Publishing, 2001. Miller, Frederic P, Vandome, Agnes F, McBrewster, John. Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. VDM Publishing House Ltd, 2010. NC-BP. Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling. Government Printing Office, 2011. Ramseur, Jonathan L. Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: The Fate of the Oil. DIANE Publishing, 2011. Read More