Bp Crisis Case Study

The BP CSR and Crisis History:

Before to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, BP encountered numerous disasters and scandals and have a track record of ignoring saftey.

The first accident which happened in December 1965, where the BP oil rig Sea Gem while it was being moved and it cost the death of thirteen human lives. Next, on March 23, 2005, BP’s refinery exploded, caught fire in Texas City and 15 workers has died. Later BP was under the lawsuits from the victim’s families and charged with criminal violations of federal environmental laws. One year later, an oil spill in Alaska caused pipeline to corrode badly. About $ 20 million was paid as environmental fines by the company.

Thereafter, the company has tried to differentiate

Preparation to the Crisis:

From all these previous accidents and experts opinion we can see it is very obvious that BP was not prepared to deal with such an accident. To prove this statement, Former BP CEO Tony Hayward admitted in his interview to Money Programme on BBC 2 that ―”BP’s contingency plans were inadequate‖, that BP ―was not prepared‖ for the Gulf oil disaster and was ―making it up day to day‖ in the early stages”. Tony Hayward also admitted that ―”BP was not prepared to deal with the intense media scrutiny over the Gulf oil disaster”‖ and that he felt he was ―”demonized and vilified”‖.

After one month of this oil spill incident, the Wall Street Journal reported that Hayward ―”admitted that the oil giant had not the technology available to stop the leak”. He also mentioned, “it was probably true that BP should have done more to prepare for such an emergency”. In addition, the investigations conducted by Congressional committee on energy and commerce concluded that BP was not prepared for a catastrophic loss of well