The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: An Ethical Examination

This essay delves into the ethical issues surrounding the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It explores the incident's causes, including the use of cheaper equipment and the actions of BP, Transocean, Halliburton, and the MMS. The essay analyzes the ethical dilemmas using utilitarianism and Kant's deontology, assessing the impact on major stakeholders such as marine life, the seafood and tourism industries, and the company's financial standing. It also discusses the company's attempts at compensation and clean-up efforts. The conclusion emphasizes the need for improved corporate social responsibility policies and ethical considerations in future operations to prevent similar disasters. The essay highlights the importance of standard equipment and ethical practices to ensure safety and protect the environment, while also considering the economic implications of such decisions.

Running head: ESSAY
Oil Spill in Gulf Mexico
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1ESSAY
BP had established their headquarters in Mexico more than 50 years ago in 1960’s. The
company in the country is currently operating in the synthetic lubricants market, in natural gases
such as liquefied natural gas crude oil and refined products to level including petrochemicals.
These activities supplement in meeting the demand of energy and energy security requirements
(bp.com, 2017). The essay is focused on the ethical issues of the company regarding the oil spill
in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It is due to the explosion occurred at occurred at the BP’s
Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Further research stated that the event could have been avoided if the
company, its partners and the government would have dealt with the problem found by the
commission appointed by Obama. An analysis and recommendation of the company’s business
ethics will be discussed in the following essay (wordpress.com, 2017).
Business and the society that the business is operating in are interconnected with the
business ethics theory. It can be viewed from two points, that are, the goal of the business and
the consideration of the business as a part of the society. The dilemmas in the ethical grounds
occur if two or more than two social work morals are in conflict. The unsafely performance
conditions and environmental pollutions that are found in the Deepwater Horizon oil spills that is
Gulf of Mexico put pressure on BP for violating the ethics of the business. Major stakeholders of
the company also got affected in the regarded issue.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill that is Gulf of Mexico is considered as the worst oil spill
in U.S. history. The explosion took place on 20th April, 2010, that resulted in large oil spill
catastrophe, where 11 workers in the rig were killed and the number of injured are 17. Over 150
thousand barrels of crude oil gushed into the sea on every day basis for next five months which
covered 68 thousand square miles of the Gulf surface (ocean.si.edu, 2017). BP funded the Gulf
of Mexico Research Initiative with $500 million to carry out the research on the impact of the

2ESSAY
spill (ocean.si.edu, 2017). The research teams came up with a report blaming unethical behavior
of the company that led to the disaster. They stated that BP used cheaper equipment in
installation of a drilling rig which was considered as risky.
The utilitarianism theory is used in the description for evaluating the ethics of the
company in the matter which states that action of an individual should always be based on the
ethics and moral rules (Lata, 2014). It favors the idea of sacrifice of a few for the profit of the
larger mass. The benefits of the society were minimized in BP’s CSR policy. The oil slip of Gulf
of Mexico can be traced back to various missteps that were taken by the companies involved,
BP, Transocean, Halliburton and the MMS who acted in an absolutely unethical way and denied
their minimal duties. The BP’s contribution towards deprived does not compensates for the
destruction. The government was equally responsible for the accident for building a flawed
relation with the company. The ethical responsibility of the company and the government needs
to be reformed in order to avoid such accidents in future (forbes.com, 2017).
The lack of professionalism of the CEO, Tony Hayward was observed by all, prejudging
the ethical behavior of the company’s social responsibility, as he was enjoying a yachting
holiday during the crisis. It portrayed a negative image of the company administration
(Lamendella et al., 2014).
A large number of stakeholders got affected by this accident either directly or indirectly.
The major stakeholders are the sea lives. It is due to the pollution that mutated and killed the
fishes. The sea lives were devastated by the explosion and the natural lives got changed widely
(Paul et al., 2013). Another major party that got affected is the industries of seafood and tourism.
The water pollution put the workers at the risk of losing their jobs, increased seafood price in the

3ESSAY
market which affected the restaurant and supermarkets as well. People refrained from going to
the beaches due to the pollution which demolished the tourism sector. On the other hand, the
profit figures of the company fell down to 35% which increased the expenditure and obligation
for individual compensation and penalties, thus losing revenue (ocean.si.edu, 2017). It impacted
in the reputation of the company and damaged the financial backbone of the company as the
investors and the stakeholders lost their faith. The marine life on the other hand was critically
harmed due to the explosion. The toxic oil in the water caused mutation in several species and
many have been killed due to it (Steele, 2016; Resnik et al., 2015).
Moreover, people’s opinion of oil use was questioned because of the disaster in BP’s oil
station. People were put in the position to consider about shifting to the alternative energy
sources as they evidenced the negative impact of oil spill to the environment. On contrary, the
attempts that were made by the company to compensate for the damage by taking part in
cleaning campaign can also be taken into consideration. People who got affected by the disaster
directly or indirectly received benefits out of these actions (practicalethics.ox.ac.uk, 2017).
Nevertheless, this cannot undo the accident that took place in the first place. If the BP had
taken ethical considerations in constructing standard oil drilling rig, the whole scenario could
have been avoided in the first place. It could have saved company’s huge amount of money that
was spent on cleaning and other fine. They could have invested this money in future projects. It
could also contribute in reduction of the oil price by supplying more amount of oil in the U.S.
market. This could have benefited the whole economy as many companies have to spend a lot of
money in the oil expanses. Hence, if the expenses would have been less, the price of the products
or services provided by the companies would have also been considerably decreased (Liu et al.,
2016).

4ESSAY
Kent’s Deontology theory can be used as the second philosophy in the scenario where it
judges the person’s action and intentions to fulfill a duty regardless of the consequences that
come after (Shafer-Landau, 2014). Though the report shows the usage of poor quality equipment
resulted in the explosion, but it was never the intention of BP to create as such. But it is clearly
sighted that, the decision taken in immoral as it increased the risk factors and eventually resulted
in a catastrophic damage. On contrary, the investment done by the company is containing the
damage and in recovery shows good morals and ethical part of the company with good intentions
that neutralizes the actions. The company’s participation in clean-up mission is considered as
ethical and moral according to the Kant theory.
BP should invest more time and labor in creating a proper and ethical CSR plan in future
which can avoid these unfortunate circumstances. Focus has to be given on the use of standard
equipments. This will eventually raise the price of the oil in the market but ensure the safety of
the society and the employees of the company. The profit margin of the company will also
eventually fall, but it will stop from creating similar situation in near future which will in term
save a lot of money. The after steps that were taken by the company were justified as they
showed ethical and moral insight of the company. Their decisions in cleaning up the water and
help in sustaining the marine life came up profitable for the stakeholders. But this couldn’t fully
compensate the damage as the unethical decisions taken by the company in prior caused harmful
effects to the marine life and altogether to the economic infrastructure of the company. No real
benefits were provided from the next ethical decisions that were taken aftermath.
Conclusion can be drawn from the above discussion that the company’s CSR policy
clearly needed to be upgraded. The failure of British Petroleum’s business strategy in Gulf of
Mexico has been highlighted in the essay and various ethical issues have been discussed. The

5ESSAY
ethical dilemmas of the incident can be seen. The use of Kent’s Deontology theory and
utilitarianism theory is also used in the passage for analyzing the situation and the events
occurred in following. A brief discussion is also provided of the impact on the major stakeholder
in the issue. The final part of the essay comprises of the recommendation that the company
should take in order to avoid similar incidents in near future which will affect their image and the
products they deal with.

6ESSAY
References
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7ESSAY
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