Introduction
The crisis that happened to British Petroleum (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is considered
one of the worst manmade disasters. The explosion was caused because of the lack of operation
control, leniency of the regulatory body and lack of accountability by the management. Based on
the article by Meigs, (2016) the team have noticed many signs of danger but chose to ignore it
which lead the disaster.
The wellhead of the rig was faulty and couldn't contain the large build up in pressure which
resulted in the explosion. The accident resulted in eleven deaths and seventeen injuries to the
staff and the blow out resulted in over 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. This greatly
affected the marine life and the company had to pay $42 billion in damages and fines.
Do you think that BP could have managed the crisis more effectively? Why or why not?
The crisis was avoidable if the necessary preventive measures were implemented and the danger
signals weren't ignored. However, the way BP handled the crisis was equally ineffective and
unplanned. Global organizations should have a crisis management plan to deal with these types
of events and minimize the impact and maintain their brand image. A crisis management plan is
a manual a business prepares to deal with crisis (Asana, 2021). The business will identify
possible crisis that could happen and investigate their impact and mitigation measure needed.
Since there was no crisis management plan the employees' lives were lost, marine life severely
affected and the brand's image was tarnished. BP did know how to stop the leak or minimize the
pollution to the environment which was an indication of lack of disaster management plan. The
solutions they tried to stop the disaster exacerbated the situation in many ways. Some of the
solutions include burning all of the oil present on the surface of the ocean which leads to
atmospheric pollution (Chris, 2010). Another solution was to spray parts of the ocean that was
contaminated by the oil with chemical dispersants which caused more harm to marine life than
good (D’Angelo, 2016). These were some of the solutions that backfired and aggravated the
crisis because of lack of crisis management plan.
The crisis that happened to British Petroleum (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is considered
one of the worst manmade disasters. The explosion was caused because of the lack of operation
control, leniency of the regulatory body and lack of accountability by the management. Based on
the article by Meigs, (2016) the team have noticed many signs of danger but chose to ignore it
which lead the disaster.
The wellhead of the rig was faulty and couldn't contain the large build up in pressure which
resulted in the explosion. The accident resulted in eleven deaths and seventeen injuries to the
staff and the blow out resulted in over 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. This greatly
affected the marine life and the company had to pay $42 billion in damages and fines.
Do you think that BP could have managed the crisis more effectively? Why or why not?
The crisis was avoidable if the necessary preventive measures were implemented and the danger
signals weren't ignored. However, the way BP handled the crisis was equally ineffective and
unplanned. Global organizations should have a crisis management plan to deal with these types
of events and minimize the impact and maintain their brand image. A crisis management plan is
a manual a business prepares to deal with crisis (Asana, 2021). The business will identify
possible crisis that could happen and investigate their impact and mitigation measure needed.
Since there was no crisis management plan the employees' lives were lost, marine life severely
affected and the brand's image was tarnished. BP did know how to stop the leak or minimize the
pollution to the environment which was an indication of lack of disaster management plan. The
solutions they tried to stop the disaster exacerbated the situation in many ways. Some of the
solutions include burning all of the oil present on the surface of the ocean which leads to
atmospheric pollution (Chris, 2010). Another solution was to spray parts of the ocean that was
contaminated by the oil with chemical dispersants which caused more harm to marine life than
good (D’Angelo, 2016). These were some of the solutions that backfired and aggravated the
crisis because of lack of crisis management plan.
