Background of the incident

“Gulf of Mexico Oil spill issue and ethics related to the case”

The purpose of this task is to provide a brief overview about the BP oil spill Mexico. The issue ethically harmed the environment and the stakeholders. So, in response to that the essay talks about the issue which the companies and the environment because of the deep-water horizon oil spill. Further it shall be noted that not only in monetary term but the spill also ethically hampered the growth of the environment. More details about the issue, it cause, measures to rectify them are discussed below:

Initially talking about the BP oil spill it shall be noted that this issue is related to oil and gas industry. In early 2010, particularly on 20^th April, the deep-water oil platform which is located near Louisiana coast was affected by a disastrous event. The Deep-water horizon is owned and operated Transocean and oil company BP. This oil spill is regarded as the biggest oil spill of all time did major destructions. Deepwater Horizon was a semi-submersible 10 years old drilling rig which used to operate its activities 10,000 feet deep in water. It was built by a South Korean company Hyundai and was owned by Transocean. The rig used to drill 18,360 feet below the sea level (BBC, 2017).

Further the explosion occurred around 9:45 CDT on 20^th April 2010, when high pressure methane gas from the drilled well got expanded into the drilling riser and then suddenly it resulted in drilling rig. Ultimately compulsion all these gases and activities resulted in explosion in the oil spill and engulfed the platform. Eleven workers of the companies faced death and seventeen workers were adversely injured because of the explosion. Later the oil horizon sank in the sea on 22^nd of April. This activity later adversely affected the state of the nature. The oil spill got attracted to the offshore as well. Thus it is regard as the biggest marine oil spill of all time. as it got displaced in various part of gulf of Mexico. Further it is regarded as the biggest oil spill because the volume to which the oil got dispersed in sea and offshore is massive, 68,000 square miles of ocean got affected with this spill and 330,000 gallons of crude was poured in the water because of explosion. Thus, with this above mentioned data it shall be noted that the oil spill and sinking of the horizon poorly affected the environment even more than expected (Jain, Aguilera, and Jamali, 2017).

Impact of the oil spill on the environment and stakeholders

More than this, the major problem was submerging of oil underwater. Researcher concluded to this issue that deep plumes of dissolved crude will remain confined to the northern Gulf of Mexico and also the dissolution will highly impact on the flow of oxygen in the environment. Also the stated that this impact will take to recover and will show a long lasting impact on the environment. So, the wellhead was finally capped on 15^th of July 2010 when the surface of the sea started appearing clear but the subsurface was still there and it started positioning offshore and on fin silts. Further in the year 2013, more than 460,000 pounds of oil particles were found in the Louisiana land and it had reached to Tampa Bay Florida as well. Thus, it came clear that the effect of such explosion was seen at places in the environment and it can be cleared in just one go. People, companies and government on this cause to keep the environment protected and the growth is showing at some places as well. This spill also affected different species of the world that have their livelihood connected to the marine. Thus, it was the major issue of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Relating the horizon to stakeholders of the industry it shall be noted that many people are connected with the issue like companies, people living on offshore, government and the society on a whole. These entire stakeholders were affected with the impact. Analyzing the impact of oil spill on stakeholder it shall be noted that many species were injured and died because of the explosion and the corruption in the water. Contaminated water was drunk by the people and different species which made to unhealthy and resulted in deaths as well. Apart from different species, people living in that area were also adversely affected by the issue. Environment got polluted because of oil spill due to which people faced difficultly in initiating their day to day activities as well. With the unhealthy environment, health of the people living in that area started getting depreciated as well. Further these are the impacts of oil spill on the stakeholders of the issue. Apart from that talking about the companies present in the industry were also affected with the cause as the government started imposing more and more penalty on them and initiating strict corporate social responsibilities on them. Lastly talking about the stakeholders of the company it shall be noted that the faced difficulty in managing the people environment and companies and issue at the same time, thus resulting to which they faced loss in their resources as well. Along with which more ethical practices were initiated by them so as to protect the environmental degradation (Rodriguez-r, et. al., 2015).

Key issues related to the oil spill

The major key issues connected to the oil spill are discussed below environmental degradation, health issues of stakeholders, societal impact and waive of human rights. These are the major issues which are connected to the cause as the environment got polluted and degraded with the oil spill and this can be regarded as breach human rights. The companies who were connected with the should have explained crucially above the activities which they initiate and its cause in the environment, as no person in the community was having adequate knowledge about the activities which the companies initiate and its impact on the environment. And the stakeholders have the right to access information about the issue, resulting to which, it appeared as a breachment of the human rights (ExxonMobil, 2017). Another issue was the failure of the organizations to respond correctly to the issue and initiate their corporate social responsibilities. It is very important for the companies which are present in the oil and gas industry to understand their social responsibilities and initiate activities accordingly so as to secure the state of the environment.

Furthermore best practices shall be initiated in the industry so that in the later time the environment is saved from occurring of such issue. Initially the organizations ad governments shall create safety measure around the oil spill. Several measures shall be created in such a way that even if the employees see some problem coming, then they shall be adequately equipped to prevent the issue from occurring. The companies shall develop framework and policies to use the measures in case of emergency. Further all the organizations shall individually and co-operatively aim to fulfill the corporate social responsibilities so as to keep the stakeholders interested in activities of the companies (Arora, & Lodhia, 2017).

Risk assessment activities shall be initiated by the government. The governments shall quarterly ask the companies to submit the risk assessment report with them along with sustainability report. This will help the government to keep a check on the activities of the companies and restrict them from performing unethical activities.

Communication is another best way to secure the environment and present the occurring of damage. Suppose if such oil spill has happened again then the initially responsibility of the platform workers is to communicate about the issue to all people so that they can protect themselves and take responsibility to minimize the cause as well. Thus, communication of issue shall be made on the priority basis and the managers shall train the employees on how to actively act when such issue occurs.

The oil and gas industry is highly sensitive industry and its activities are highly reactive as well. From the activities initiated by the companies, greenhouse gases are emitted in the environment from the combustion of mobile internal engines and stationary. This leads to emergence of unseen calamities as well. Thus the energy efficiency activities shall be initiated so as to cure the environmental degradation (Resnik, et. al., 2015).

Thus in the limelight of above mentioned events, the facts that shall be noted is that the Deepwater horizon oil spill adversely affected the state of the environment. The Explosion was made in the Gulf of Mexico which made the oil dispersed in the whole sea and later submerges in water. Resulting to which, this issue gave a long lasting effect on the environment. The stakeholders of the industry were adversely affected with the spill. Resulting to which, the above mentioned task explain about the ethical practice which shall be initiated in the environment so as to rectify the cause. The report adequately justifies the requirements of the task.

References

Arora, M. P., & Lodhia, S. (2017). The BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill: Exploring the link between social and environmental disclosures and reputation risk management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, 1287-1297.

BBC, (2017). Geography. Viewed on November 25, 2017 from < https://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/wasting_resources/waste_pollution_rev5.shtml>

ExxonMobil, (2017). Corporate Citizenship Report.  . Viewed on November 25, 2017 from https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/community/corporate-citizenship-report

Jain, T., Aguilera, R.V. and Jamali, D., (2017). Corporate stakeholder orientation in an emerging country context: A longitudinal cross industry analysis. Journal of Business Ethics, 143(4), pp.701-719.

Resnik, D. B., Miller, A. K., Kwok, R. K., Engel, L. S., & Sandler, D. P. (2015). Ethical issues in environmental health research related to public health emergencies: reflections on the GuLF STUDY. Environmental health perspectives, 123(9), A227.

Rodriguez-r, L. M., Overholt, W. A., Hagan, C., Huettel, M., Kostka, J. E., & Konstantinidis, K. T. (2015). Microbial community successional patterns in beach sands impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The ISME journal, 9(9), 1928-1940.