BP’s Oil Spill Disaster

This essay explores the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, discussing its impact on the environment and the corporate responsibility and governance issues surrounding the incident.

Running Head: BP’s Oil Spill Disaster
Corporate Responsibility and governance
Essay
System04104
1/2/2019

BP’s Oil Spill Disaster
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BP’s Oil Spill Disaster
The BP oil spill/leak (also referred to as the BP oil disaster, the Gulf of Mexico oil
spill, or Deepwater Horizon oil spill) is an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010, in
the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Mocondo Prospect. It was one of the largest marine
oil spills in the petroleum industry and according to a report published by the American
government 4.9 million barrels oil discharge in water. The expert assumes after watching the
leaking video that daily leakage rate of oil was 1,900,000-3,000,000 litres per day (Hsu, Liu,
Yang, & Chou, 2013). There are many people and parties affected directly or indirectly with
this environmental disaster such as people who depends on seafood business, fisherman, and
people who work in tourism.
Ethics provides a set of standards that help us to decide how an individual or group of
people should behave in a certain situation (Resnik, Miller, Kwok, Engel, & Sandler, 2015).
If we considering this then we can say that corporate ethics is all about the making correct
choices and good decision-making in a certain situation and shows the corporate
responsibility and accountability towards the people and the environment.
This incident was totally overseen by the US government in the starting of the oil spill
incident and the other Federal Government agency such as the Minerals management service.
The evidence shows that the poor corporate governance and unethical practice of BP’s was
the major cause behind this incident. The Company oversight the issues of safety, health, and
environment and also formed various sub-committees that were conducted by various few
directors where there was no transparency and public scrutiny involved. The main focus of
BP's corporate governance was to enhance the profit of the company and achieve the high
growth rate by exploiting workers and the natural environment. The president of US at that
time was Barack Obama was totally failed to identify such issue and his first address about
this matter came after roughly two months later. Even government restrict the press entry and
make it impossible for the press to provide information to people about this matter (Choi,
2012).
Some of the major ethical decisions and questions arise in this disaster is related to
moral and legal obligations of the company because no one can ignore the importance of
wildlife and the environment. The Deepwater Horizon spill is not only how deep it is, but the

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huge quantity of oil and gases leaked and spread on the surface and seafloor. After the
disaster, BP promised that the company will clean up every drop of oil from seafloor and
restore the shoreline in its original state and give compensation to the fisherman and small
business owners by cutting off their advertisement expenses who suffered (Arora & Lodhia,
2017). BP almost ignored the importance of their responsibility towards the environment and
that cost lives of a large number of sea species (sea turtles, sea fishes, dolphins, pelicans etc.)
because the gas and oil directly mix with water and make it toxic.
There are no strong and strict laws that protect the animals and sea creatures and their
interests in Gulf. Some law that exists related to animals only protect their owners or the
public (Flynn & Speier, 2014). There is no penalty imposed on BP still and this should be a
major concern regarding the corporate governance and ethical responsibility of government
as well. Environmental disaster of this magnitude raises the question about the corporate
ethical responsibility and also indicates that Gulf should formulate strict laws for the
protection of environment and wildlife and for the ecological system as well (Bond, 2013).
This law should not only protect the wildlife and animals but should also protect the interest
of people whose livelihood depends on the health of the Gulf.
Such disaster was a result of poor corporate governance and lack in decision-making.
BP and even the US government both fail in taking correct decisions before and after the
disaster. Organisational decision-making in the crisis situation should be based on principles
of ethics such as organisational responsibility towards the people, environment, and society in
which it operates and based on accountability towards the stakeholders. The poor decision-
making regarding the safety and security of people and inappropriate management structure
of the organisation was more responsible for the damage (Heflin & Wallace, 2017).
The utilitarian theory of ethics states that those decisions are considered to be ethical
in which provides good for most of the people and bad for few people. Ethical environmental
action, then, is one that provides good results for most of the people and bad results for less
number of people. If we consider government, communities, or the environment, then the
action of BP provide the most good for people because they provide essential fuel and oil for
people development by using natural resources. But the problem is here, a small mistake was
turned in a drastic disaster which affects lots of wildlife and sea creature along with spreading
toxic gases in the seawater (Watson, 2014). Although, BP appointed a team of experts and
scientist who helped them to recover the original state of the seashore and release a scientific

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report that shows that affected area making a rapid recovery. However, it has been found that
the impact of such toxic water still available into the Gulf and wildlife there is still struggling
to ricochet (Mobus, 2012).
In conclusion, it can be said that BP and even US government were failed to identify
the situation in its initial phase that cost the heavy loss of wildlife and economic loss for
those people who depends on seafood business and tourism business. Although, the above
analysis also helps to understand that the ethical decision-making in a crisis situation is
should be based on ethical principles such as responsibility and accountability of
organisations towards people and environment. Public criticism and media coverage not only
help to focused on such disaster, but the irresponsible behaviour of US government and BP
was also a concern when they even failed to show their sympathy to the victims of that
disaster. The leadership failure to respond to the environmental crisis and lack in ethical
practices demonstrate that organisation should involve the crisis preparedness and ethical
guidelines as a part of their organisation culture.

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References
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Flynn, B. W., & Speier, A. H. (2014). Disaster behavioral health: Legal and ethical
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