Beyond petroleum or bottom line profits only? An ethical analysis of BP and the Gulf oil spill

an article by Mark S. Schwartz (York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) published in Business and Society Review Volume 125 Issue 1 (Spring 2020)

Abstract

On April 20th, 2010, an incident was to take place 49 miles off the Louisiana coast at the Macondo Prospect location in the Gulf of Mexico that would potentially change the future of offshore oil drilling. On that day, 11 men would lose their lives when the 33,000 ton Deepwater Horizon rig, owned by Transocean but leased by BP PLC, exploded.

As a result of the explosion, millions of barrels of oil would be released into the Gulf of Mexico, leading to widespread environmental harm and devastation to the shoreline communities.

To better examine the underlying reasons for how such an event could take place in 2010, this paper will unfold as follows.

First, we provide context to the oil spill by discussing the history of BP, including its transformation into an “environmental” firm in 1995.

Second, we explore and analyse the catastrophe through the lens of ethics.

Finally, we analyse the disaster through a comparison with the U.S. 2008 financial crisis with a view to identify the root causes of the disaster and the string of ethical failures that have scarred the market economy over the past three or four decades.

Labels:
BP, corporate_governance, Deepwater_Horizon, ethical_anlysis, Gulf_of_Mexico, oil_spill, leadership,

---