Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico: Ethical Issues Involved
Answer:
Introduction:
British Petroleum is considered to be the biggest integrated energy organization in the world. It operates all the activities which are mostly connected with the gas and oil which mean refining, producing, exploring, marketing and distributing these products in the world market. It also uses the renewable energy sources like solar and wind power. The production of crude oil as well as natural gas produce by British Petroleum ranges to almost 4.1 million every day. It has almost 85 thousand employees who are operating in almost 110 countries. It is considered to be a very important corporation (Gilmour, 2014).
The interconnection between the society and the business is called business ethics which consist of two main points of view. First being the main purpose of any business is to earn the profit, this view is regarding the business whereas the second view is regarding the society which means that the society consider the business activities as a part of the society, and the policies followed by the business should be acceptable by them and favourable to the society (Gaskill, 2011). Sometimes there are situations when to earn the profit the business need to take certain decisions which are not favorable for the society and causes damages to the society which is called ethical business dilemmas.
There exists situation when the decision of the business is unethical and against the social morals like environment pollution and unsafe environment conditions which affect the stakeholders. Such incidents have been discovered in Deepwater Horizon oil spills.In the year 2010 on 20th April, an explosion occurred on the drilling platform of the Mexico Gulf, which is one of the largest explosion till date in the history of the petroleum industry. In this accident of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, 11 workers were killed, and 17 had serious injuries In this accident almost 150 thousand barrels of oil was flushed into the sea(Crowsey, 2013).
Many government and non-government organization investigated the reasons for the explosion and the reason for this massive explosion at the deep water Horizon Oil spill was unethical behavior. The various causes of this explosion were the unprofessional behavior of the higher authorities of the company, and the structure of oil platform which is required for drilling was not installed properly. BP continued the drilling by using a cheap design of the well which was considered very risky.It affected the tourism and seafood industry (Shamonda, 2014). This explosion had caused great damage to the reputation of British Petroleum and faith of the stakeholder were lost. It caused huge financial losses. The company lost investors as well as the customers. This oil spills also caused negative reputation of gasoline stations. The decision of the company to continue without the proper structure was not right which lead to such a massive destruction.The research has shown that the subcontractors and the BP have followed the time -saving procedure without realizing the harmful effects and risk involved in it. The decision of the company about saving money without realizing that oil drilling procedure followed by the company was unsafe was not correct. As a result of this, it caused destruction to the environment, and the company had to incur huge unnecessary expenses.
This oil spill affected the lives of many people. This problem leads to an increase in the price of crude oil. The price of the oil was increased because the cleaning cost was added to the price of the oil. Also, the accident caused the shortage in the supply of oil for use of the consumers. This incidence created a problem for other oil companies when restriction in the oil drilling areas and new regulations were imposed (Mitsch,2010). This affected the image of the British Petroleum which in turn affected their stakeholders, technologist, and employees.
There are various theories of ethical behavior which all the companies need to follow to save the environment and work for the benefit of the society. One such ethical theory is Mill’s Utilitarianism theory which includes the happiness principle which means bringing greatest utility to a large number of people. This theory suggests that behavior is considered to be ethical if it benefits a large number of people. Even if in this process an individual has to sacrifice their happiness by providing happiness to a large number of people than the behavior is considered to be ethical. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was considered to be opposite to the theory of mill’s because it affected a large number of people and affected the tourism and fish industry of the region (Mitsch, 2010). It caused a harmful effect on the health of the people and the environment. It caused a loss of million to the company which in turn affected the image of the company and the faith of its employees, stakeholders, etc. This explosion will have a negative effect for decades to come. In addition to these losses, the cleaning process also had a negative effect because it caused air and water pollution. This incidence has influenced the thinking of all the people involved in it and they were thinking to shift to other energy sources because the oil spill has a negative effect on the environment.
A lot of steps were taken after the incident.BP now focuses more on greenhouse emission and global warming so that a better environment is provided to the future generations. Stakeholders are more concern about the price of the oil and the pollution that is created by the oil industry. They now invest more on natural sources of energy like solar and wind energy and investing in biofuels. It is coming up with new technology and project to use natural sources of energy. The consumption of oil and its products are increasing every year; therefore, BP is following procedure so that the greenhouse gasses that are emitted in the environment are reduced so that it does not create a harmful effect on the environment (Pezeshki & DeLaune, 2015). It is an investment in the project and technology and innovating new technology so that it creates low carbon products for the future. To recover from the destruction caused due to oil spill the company has followed various cleaning campaign which is helping to recover the loss caused to tourism and the marine life.
The oil and petroleum industry should consider their responsibly to not to harm the environment and the wildlife and work towards the benefit of the society. The Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico was caused mainly due to the negligence of the top authorities and due to unethical practices followed by the company. The proper structure that was required for drilling purpose was not constructed which lead to such massive destruction. Better technologies and innovation should be used, so the company can perform its operation efficiency and to eliminate the unnecessary burning of the gasses and to stop the leakage. This could be done by using the renewable sources of energy and using better and new technologies. The BP should work towards the preservation of the environment for the future and protection the environment from the harmful effect caused due to this industry (Gaskill, 2011). The betterment of the society and the environment should be the first and most important target of the oil and petroleum industry.
References
Crowsey, R. (2013). Persistence of Gulf of Mexico Surface Oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Spill.Southeastern Geographer, 53(4), 359-361.
Gaskill, M. (2011). Oil spills underreported in Gulf of Mexico. Nature.
Gilmour, S. (2014). Deepwater Horizon Blowout Animation. YouTube. Retrieved 10 August 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCVCOWejlag&authuser=0.
Mitsch, W. (2010). The 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: What would Mother Nature do?.Ecological Engineering, 36(12), 1607-1610.
Pezeshki, S. & DeLaune, R. (2015). United States Gulf of Mexico Coastal Marsh Vegetation Responses and Sensitivities to Oil Spill: A Review. Environments, 2(4), 586-607.
Shamonda, H. (2014). Business Ethics Presentation- British Petroleum. YouTube. Retrieved 10 August 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmYth3fXN5A&authuser=0.
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