In April, 2010, an oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico created a gigantic oi
ID: 3822428 • Letter: I
Question
In April, 2010, an oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico created a gigantic oil spill that threatened wildlife and industries throughout the area. What are the factors that would motivate the management of British Petroleum, who leased and operated the well, to undertake a quality initiative as a response to the explosion? What quality initiatives could BP apply if it wanted to prevent future disasters? Which one(s) do you think should be used, and why? Support your opinions with specific research on the oil spill and similar disasters.
Explanation / Answer
The Gulf oil spill is recognized as the worst oil spill in U.S. history. BP also referred to by its former name, British Petroleum, is a British multinational oil and gas company which owns the petroleum well had estimated the total loss by underlying cameras. It is shown that BP pipe was leaking oil and gas on the ocean floor about 42 miles off the coast of Louisiana. By the time the well was capped, an estimated 3.19 million barrels of oil had leaked into the Gulf.
This made British petroleum to take necessary actions to undertake a quality initiative as a response to the explosion. They made some necesary changs in thier security operations. The cancellation of an independent test that would have detected problems with the cement seal led to that seal failing at a critical juncture. If that critical test had been done, Oil spill incident did not have happened.
BP implemented new safer technologies in quality control and their compliance structure became much safer. Regulators like the Interior Department “face a major challenge” in keeping up with new technology that oil and gas drillers are using and in trying to account for the major risks that come along with drilling in the ocean are meant to be placed.
If BP had taken what was learned from the sinking of the Piper Alpha platform, which was owned by Occidental Petroleum, and applied it going forward, the Deep Horizon disaster might have never happened. The main lesson to be learned from both the Piper Alpha and the Deepwater Horizon is that safety cannot be overlooked in the quest for profit. When employees’ lives are at stake, companies need to utilize all avenues of safety that are available.
Regular testing and qulaitative control methods are to be done in order to mitigate the risks. Learning from the past incidents and acquiring more safety methods surely increase the producivity without occuring these type of disasters.