British Petroleum “Bp” Oil Spill

British Petroleum “BP” Oil Spill On April 20th 2010, British Petroleum better known as BP had an extremely destructive impact on the environment and the livelihood of those in Gulf Coast area of Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. BP’s Deep-water Horizon oil rig was located offshore, 52 miles off the southeast coast of Venice, Louisiana. An explosion on the Deep-water Horizon oil rig caused a massive fire that claimed the lives of eleven BP workers. After 36 hours of burning, the Deep-water Horizon oil rig sunk to the bottom of the ocean and during this time there were different accounts of how much oil was leaking, if any.

Within two weeks, estimates ranged from 8,000 barrels a day to none, back up to 1,000 and some even estimated at 60,000 barrels a day, this made it clear that no one really knew how much oil was being released into the ocean. Initially, besides the deaths, BP made it appear as if it was a mild disaster for the organization. However, the reality of this disaster was that eleven people lost their lives, an estimated 4. 9 million barrels of oil leaked in the Gulf of Mexico for five months and only approximately 800 million cleaned up. As a result, sea animals lost their lives, many fisherman lost their livelihood, and even the tourism suffered.

In the end, BP was fined four billion dollars by the government of the United States, agreed to pay $525 million in civil penalties and has already paid billions in civil claims to all who were impacted by the spill. In addition, three BP employees were indicted on criminal charges and BP CEO Tony Hayward stepped down four months after the spill. The above summary about the tragic BP oil spill was as a result of nbcnews. com website. The article detailed the result of the BP Oil spill of 2010. After two and a half years, the US government and BP agreed on a settlement of 4. billion and the plea of guilty of eleven manslaughter charges. The payments will be paid out in a p of 5 years. This is the largest such penalty ever to an organization. This settlement does not include civil cases that are pending against them from their workers. BP had also agreed in March of 2012 to pay 7. 8 billion to more than 100,000 businesses that were directly affected by the oil spill. The positive aspect of this massive oil spill is that BP took responsibility for the oil spill by pleading guilty and paying billions of dollars for clean-up to businesses, fisherman, families, etc. and committing o getting the coast line back to the way it was before the industrial accident. In addition, BP dedicated a section of their website to the Gulf oil spill in an effort to keep the lines of communication open. BP even used television commercials to communicate the progress of the clean-up efforts and BP employed thousands of people for the clean-up efforts. However, there is a fundamental belief that had BP had not been so greedy and negligent, this environmental disaster could have been avoided. BP made many cost saving decisions that increased the risk of a spill and did not closely monitor their contractors.

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There were so many negative effects of this spill to include the loss of lives, fisherman who lost their livelihood, tourism suffered, wildlife and their breeding grounds were displaced, oil prices skyrocketed, oil rig workers lost their jobs and worst of all, no one will ever truly know the future affects this disaster will cause for the wildlife and environment. In the end, BP continues to rake in billions (last quarter 93 billion) in revenue. The 4. 5 billion BP had to pay to the US government pales in comparison to their profits every year.

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