Bp Oil Spill Essay
This paper will give an account of many of the primary errors that were committed by BP. Also, specific dates will be used as a timeline in order to emphasize BP’s lack of concern and ability to act in a legal and ethical manner during the crisis.
On April 20, 2010, a Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and causing the worst environmental disaster in US history (BBC …show more content…
On May 8, an attempt to place a giant metal box on top of the leaking well failed. Given the magnitude of the situation, BP was under extreme pressure to find a solution to the crisis. On May 21, BP set up a website where the public could submit ideas on how to clean up the oil and stop the leak. The idea of gathering input from the public could have been affective if BP had a trained crisis management team in place. However, BP didn’t have the ability or resources (trained personnel) to manage the thousands of responses they hadn’t anticipated.
On May 30, 2010, the CEO of BP, Tony Hayward, expressed his stress and fatigue when he made an appearance on the Today Show and said, ‘‘there is no one who wants this over more than I do. I’d like my life back.’’ That didn’t sit so well with the general public, and neither did the statement made to reporters by BP Chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, in which he said, ‘‘People say that large oil