Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Ashley Elizalde
Exam Essay 1 The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which flowed for three months in 2010. This spill had a catastrophic on the environment causing extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats as well as killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others. This spill is the “worst environmental disaster the US has faced”, according to White House energy adviser Carol Browner. Why did this occur? The staff of the BP Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore drilling Commission said in a report delivered said, BP “did not have policies and systems in place to ensure that decisions made to reduce costs and improve efficiency do not increase risks or diminish safety”. The management of this company failed to do many important steps that could have prevented this disaster. According to our text on page 16 “top managers make long-term decisions about the overall direction of the organization and establish the objectives, policies, and strategies for it all”. According to an Article in the Wall Street Journal by Siabhan Hughes, “the panel’s chief counsel, Fred Bartlit, that his team had uncovered no evidence that any workers on the rig consciously made a decision to put cost cutting ahead of safety.” Page 13 of the text indicates the four principal functions of managers are to plan, organize, control, and lead. The managers of BP failed and all those core functions. They did not plan on how the cost cutting would affect the safety of their operation nor organize the proper protocol in reducing these risks. They did not monitor their choice in the price cuts efficiently or the problem may have been caught in time, and as far as leading goes well they lead incorrectly with horrible consequences. Page 81 of the text defines ethics as “the standards of right and wrong that influence behavior”, where were those ethics in choosing to ignore the safety risks involved with cutting costs in the company. Page 86 of the text
Exam Essay 1 The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which flowed for three months in 2010. This spill had a catastrophic on the environment causing extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats as well as killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others. This spill is the “worst environmental disaster the US has faced”, according to White House energy adviser Carol Browner. Why did this occur? The staff of the BP Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore drilling Commission said in a report delivered said, BP “did not have policies and systems in place to ensure that decisions made to reduce costs and improve efficiency do not increase risks or diminish safety”. The management of this company failed to do many important steps that could have prevented this disaster. According to our text on page 16 “top managers make long-term decisions about the overall direction of the organization and establish the objectives, policies, and strategies for it all”. According to an Article in the Wall Street Journal by Siabhan Hughes, “the panel’s chief counsel, Fred Bartlit, that his team had uncovered no evidence that any workers on the rig consciously made a decision to put cost cutting ahead of safety.” Page 13 of the text indicates the four principal functions of managers are to plan, organize, control, and lead. The managers of BP failed and all those core functions. They did not plan on how the cost cutting would affect the safety of their operation nor organize the proper protocol in reducing these risks. They did not monitor their choice in the price cuts efficiently or the problem may have been caught in time, and as far as leading goes well they lead incorrectly with horrible consequences. Page 81 of the text defines ethics as “the standards of right and wrong that influence behavior”, where were those ethics in choosing to ignore the safety risks involved with cutting costs in the company. Page 86 of the text