...Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill On April 20, 2010, an event occurred in the Gulf of Mexico that changed the life of many of the citizens living near and around the area. The event would be known as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which was triggered by an explosion on a Deepwater Horizon oil rig resulting “in the deaths of 11 workers and injuries to another 17 workers” (NIOSH, 2011). Millions of barrels of oil were believed to have leaked into the Gulf, damaging resources, causing health issues, and injuring wildlife. The primary law, in the U.S., for companies conducting deepwater drilling is outlined in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA). The OPA “establishes a framework that addresses the liability of responsible parties in connection with the discharge of oil into the navigable waters of the United States, adjoining shorelines, or the exclusive economic zone” (Nichols, 2010). The OPA limits certain liabilities of the responsible party when an incident occurs in the previous mentioned areas. The OPA is limited based on the type of vessel or facility involved in the incident and the quantity of oil displaced by a discharge. Part of the OPA includes the claims for certain damages and removal costs. Claims for an incident must be presented directly to the responsible party, where the responsible party must pay appropriate claim within 90 days. If the responsible party fails to pay the claim during this timeframe, then the claimant can submit a claim...
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...Crisis Panel BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill British Petroleum is a multinational company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. BP dedicates to find, extract, transport, and commercialize oil and gas. BP is the fourth largest global energy company in the world and it is the largest producer of oil and gas in the United States with headquarters in Houston Texas. Since BP started operating in United States has been involved in many environmental and safety scandals. The most recent incident is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico near the Louisiana coast. It is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and it has created a huge damage in the environment. In the morning of April 20, 2010 the Deepwater Horizon exploded; there were 126 members on the platform when fire engulfed the platform, although most of the workers escaped the rig by lifeboat and were subsequently evacuated by boat or airlifted by helicopter for medical treatment; however, eleven workers were never found despite a three-day Coast Guard search operation, and are presumed to have died in the explosion. The fire on the platform lasted for 36 hours and ended by the Deepwater Horizon sank. Two days later after the explosion a large oil slick was discovered at the former side of the platform, it was confirmed that a damaged wellhead was leaking. BP estimated the worst case flow at 162,000 barrels per day. Initial estimates by Coast Guard and BP officials...
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...Causes and Effects of Gulf Oil Disaster As the situation of environment is becoming worse than ever these days, the explosion of Deepwater Horizon ship has been making things the worst with the enormous damages since this incident happened on April 20th 2010. This disastrous accident happened under the 2nd biggest oil company BP’s poor responsibility. According to this accident, about 30 laborers died or got deadly hurt then the ship started to sink down couple days after the exploding. As an unofficial said that it was spilling out 35,000 to 60,000 gallons of oil for a day from the borehole in deep sea. (“Oil estimate raised to 35,000-60,000 barrels a day”) In fact, however, it was hard to estimate how speedy the oil was spilling since it started to spill out from too deep. This problem brought controversy nowadays since the police were not even sure how big this trouble was. This disaster is still causing the end of marine animals, fishing industries, tourism and even wild animals’ place to live by marine pollutions. Although the situation is not easy to bear, if people know what exact causes and effects of this accident, there must be the way to be closed for solution. The BP’s efforts to resolve is not actually seemed that it’s able to cover the seriousness of this accident any soon since it’s like uncountable costs would be charged to clean up the oil and restore the damage. Furthermore, some experts predict that more than 100 years will be needed to make it up. However...
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...Oil spills can destroy marine biomes across the globe, yet they are still extremely common, and there’s no truly effective way to handle them. Two of the largest oil spills that ever occurred are the Gulf Oil Spill and the Arabian Gulf Spill. Both spills wreaked havoc on the environment surrounding them, endangering birds, destroying coral reefs, washing up on beaches, and so much more. Surprisingly, both ecosystems have recovered more quickly than was originally expected. Within 5 years, they returned to almost normal conditions. This is likely in part because of the incredible amounts of money spent and the charities that organized community clean-ups. The Arabian Gulf Spill leaked as many as 336 million gallons of oil into the ocean, and...
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...In April of 2010 the Gulf of Mexico had one of the biggest oil spills in history. This catastrophic explosion that happened from BP was caused by offshore drilling and has managed to reach shore lines. This oil spill will affect us even after my generation is dead. It is even worse than the damage done by Exxon Valdez tanker that spilled 11 million gallons of oil."This event is a self-feeding fire," Charter said. "It is so big and expanding so fast that it's pretty much beyond human response that can be effective. ... You're looking at a long-term poisoning of the area. Ultimately, this will have a multidecade impact" (Almasy, 2010). Now the question is what does this mean for our future? What are some of the consequences that we are going to be faced with? Will we ever truly recover from this? Can this oil spill have consequences for decades to come? What will happen with are oil companies? Or better yet are we better off living without oil? Or is there any other alternative to oil? This oil spill raises a lot of questions and as of right now we are to early in the game to see how is will turn up. This oil spill without a doubt will affect many but how will it affect professional fisherman and the artisan fisherman? How will it impact the fishermen and their jobs, giving jobs to recreational fishermen, communities happening at the wrong time, families, family own business, health, emotional, and physical...
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...but why isn’t it that easy when cleaning oil spills? Why does oil take almost days or even months to finally go away? Oils from organic to mineral all contain hydrocarbons, a compound of hydrogen and carbon that are the chief components of any petroleum and natural gases. Hydrocarbons spread which makes oil spread on any surface, thinner oils spreading faster because of their less viscosity. The specific hydrocarbons in oil are the reason it is so sticky and greasy. An oil spill is the discharge of liquid petroleum hydrocarbons into an environment. High populated areas and its high amount of human activity, is one of the main locations for this type of world pollution. Oil spills can have...
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...Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and BP Environmental Clean-Up Deb Schoenwether MGMT 312 Creativity & Innovation December 8, 2010 Submitted By: Joe Panayiotou Angela Merryfield Sonya Meggs Lisa Parker Kristi Mathews Introduction: (Lisa Parker) On April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on an offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 28 people. It was later found that the wellhead was damaged and was leaking oil from the British Petroleum (BP) Oil Refinery into the Gulf of Mexico. In a report on the incident issued by BP on September 8, the company admitted that there were weaknesses in the cement design and testing. It is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. BP is the third largest energy company and the fourth largest company in the world. BP is headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Its largest division is BP America, which is the biggest producer of oil and gas in the United States and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. (Wikipedia, 2010) This significant oil spill poses a serious threat to people, industries, businesses, wildlife and beaches along the coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. The spill continues to cause extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats as well as the Gulf's fishing and tourism industries. BP states that they will recruit a series of teams to clean-up the shorelines and workers will receive safety training before clean-up takes place...
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...During April 2010, BP was involved in the largest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The spill brought about plenty of pollution to the marine wildlife and destroyed Gulf’s fishing and tourism industries. Accordingly, the government established a panel to look into the accident. The investigation result indicated that the accident was unavoidable because of serious of blunders involved in drilling the well. In this essay, I will examine the communication problem that occurred and explore key causes and symptoms related to the problem. Bad management and communication breakdown by BP and its partners are partly to blame for the oil disaster. However, it was BP who was the main culprit for failing to ensure its cost cutting measures did not further increase risks in a dangerous environment. All involved companies were struggling with poor communication between each other, as they failed to share important information. One of the major questions being asked was who was in charge of the command portion of the operations. Some assumed it was BP and its partners while others concluded it to be the government. This confusion lead to all parties pointing the finger at each other rather than finding a plan to control the situation. One of the causes for the oil spill was an engineering one, as many equipments were failed to be inspected on schedule. Poor communication was another cause, as no one had a big picture of what was going on. No structure or plan was put in...
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...Medical researchers are meeting this week in New Orleans to discuss the health effects of the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But most of the discussion is about what isn't known. The workshop was pulled together in a matter of days by the Institute of Medicine, a prestigious independent body chartered by Congress. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asked for the review. Even though oil spills are fairly common, scientists at the two-day workshop say there's surprisingly little research on how they affect human health. Since the 1960s, one researcher notes, there have been more than 30 major oil spills, nearly all of them involving shipwrecked tankers. But only about a quarter of them have been studied for toxic effects on humans. And the studies that have been done are often small and without comparison between groups of oil-exposed and unexposed people. In addition, none has so far looked at long-term consequences of exposure, such as cancer incidence. At the end of a long day of questions and answers on what's known about the effects of oil spills on humans, activist John Hosey pretty much summed up the situation. "The answers that people are getting are much like the oil coming out of the floor of the ocean," Hosey told the assembled scientists. "There's a lot of it coming up, but none of it's worth very much." Hosey is a clergyman with the Mississippi Interfaith Disaster Task Force. Concern About Long-Term Problems None of...
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...Business Ethics Risk The demand for oil depletes the world’s oil reserves at an alarming rate. Drilling operations are accused of contributing to water pollution and the release of air contaminants into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases in return contribute to the warming of the earth’s atmosphere, leading to greater risk of polar ice cap melting, flooding and other environment damages. Situation An oil tanker from Exxon which named Exxon Valdez happened oil spill crisis on Friday, March 24, 1989. (Lilly, 2011) It was categorised into the top five largest companies in the US with the leading CEO Lawrence G. Rawl. One the day of the spill, the oil tanker hit a reef and it leaked massive crude oil in the Prince willam sound which was...
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...Gulf oil spill ENV/100 Feb 16, 2015 Gulf oil spill On April 20, 2010 the British petroleum Deepwater horizon oilrig exploded of the Gulf of Mexico, causing the worst environmental disaster the United States has ever faced. The oilrigs’ explosion effects on the air, water and wildlife is devastating. What kind of damage will this cause on the ecosystem over the years? In the aftermath of the explosion what steps can we take to insure this kind of accident does not happen again? With the ever-growing need for energy, what type’s new technology will help us eliminate or need for petroleum? In the aftermath of the explosion, a large amount of pollutants found their way in to the ecosystem. The initial explosion caused an enormous fire that released air born particulates small enough to affect human health. This was of further concern because of the gulf breeze blowing the smoke to shore. The black plume of smoke produced around 1.4 to 4.6 million pounds of carbon was sent into the upper atmosphere. The black smoke also elevated higher than average burns, which could have a longer damaging effect on the environment. The damage was not limited to just the air quality because this was a deep-sea operation the water was also effected. The oil that was pumped into the ocean was denser than other oil spills. The result of this is that the majority of the oil sank to the bottom instead of floating to the surface. This can have devastating effects on the ecosystem of the gulf if...
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...GULF OIL SPILL On April 20, 2010, we can all remember the vivid images when the news reported an explosion of an oil rig that killed 11 workers. The company responsible was British Petroleum, which owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling unit. The event was in the news continually, because it was regarded as the worst environmental disaster in the history of the United States. It took 85 days to cap the well. This catastrophe killed wildlife and threatened the livelihoods of fishermen, restaurants, and oil industry workers resulting in massive job losses. According to Wikipedia, an oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially marine areas, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. Oil spills may be due to releases of crude oil from tankers, offshore platforms, drilling rigs, and wells. Although oil spills can be controlled by chemical dispersion and/or absorption, this is not something easily to recover from. Spills may take weeks, months or even years to clean up. The cost of the oil spill clean-up is reported to be in the billions of dollars. BP had workers on the doomed Deepwater Horizon rig that could have prevented the missteps that led to the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill according to the White House oil spill commission. The crew onboard the rig misread the pressure test and decided to move ahead which resulted in the rig exploding. What caused the oil spill to happen on the deep water horizon...
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...1. What aspects of BP’s ethical culture could have contributed to the Gulf Coast oil spill disaster? BP’s ethical culture did contribute to the Gulf Coast oil spill disaster which occurred on April 20th, 2010 resulting from an explosion which killed eleven (11) employees. This disaster created an environmental catastrophe as millions of gallons of crude oil were sent into the Gulf of Mexico, wreaking havoc on the livelihoods of fishermen and others who depended on the Gulf for income. The aspects of BP’s ethical culture that contributed to the Gulf Coast oil spill are: BP did not have in place adequate safety measures. The rig did not have a remote control cut off switch. A BP official falsely informed Fox News after the incident that BP had successfully activated part of a failed blowout preventer, which was slowing the oil flow. This announcement turned out to be false as BP’s underwater robot did in fact trigger a device, but the device did not stop the flow of oil. While the remote controlled cut out switch was not required by law as long as the Rig had a backup control system, BP could have ensured that some sort of emergency shut off system was in place. BP cut corners to save time and money while not providing sufficient oversight. Seventy five percent of incidents that caused Federal investigations into safety on deep sea drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico were on Transocean drilling rigs and BP were their biggest client. Therefore it was BP’s responsibility...
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...MANAGEMENT 5590 – FALL I 2012 ROPES PRESENTATION PAPER SECTION 2 - BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS By Loyd P. Cadwell Webster University SECTION 2 BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS Introduction The theme of this section is socialization and attribution within an organization. The culture within an organization is studied with many good examples. Socialization, as defined at dictionary.com is: “A continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position.” On the other hand, per the American Heritage Dictionary, attribution is: “Something, such as a quality or characteristic, which is related to a particular possessor; an attribute.” Therefore, this section introduces with examples of social behavioral problems in the work place. Everyone is shaped by his or her experiences because of company culture, unique situations, personal history, and other individuals they work with. We all learn and grow as we learn through these experiences…… Story 1 – But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others Summary of Material Our first story talks about the fact that there is a hierarchy of executives, managers, and workers within an organization. If we are well socialized in an organizational culture, we can see why certain people hold the jobs they have within that company. Usually, it is because they have certain special attributes which make...
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...is BP and the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill which caused so much damage to the environment and also huge economic losses within a short period of time among other damages. Meanwhile, the CEO, Tony Hayward’s response especially about a comment he made on air causes a stir and the fact that BP has got quite a poor safety record, heightened the reaction of the political and public to BP’s involvement in the spill. In short, I’m discussing the communication problem, its causes and symptoms and the application of the communication model. The main communication problem facing BP is their CEO’s choice of words to the public through the media about how no one wanted the problem over than he did and how he wanted his life back which was beyond inconsiderate, insensitive and out of touch by choosing words like that. The problem is affecting BP’s reputation and major implications for the organization of BP forcing them to implement strategies for the unanticipated environmental changes. It will also affect BP’s relationship with the government as the President is already under significant pressure to be tough with BP. The causes include the failure to learn their lesson from previous crisis concerning their number of highly visible US safety issues to implement strategies before the unanticipated event occurred. This would be fair to the concerns of the U.S. Congress to ask Mr. Hayward about whether BP had deliberately traded off safety measures to save costs prior to the spill. The symptoms...
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