Case analysis: Executive Summary

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Executive Summary
The assignment provides an understanding on how decisions are made in order to resolve solutions with an aim of prevention of an accident or even resolve the damage caused by the accident. Its arguments are based on the case of ethical issues which have been experienced by BP Oil Company because of the oil spill which was refereed to as most destructive ever in the history of petroleum industry.
The assignment elaborates on the ethics theories which would be used in decision making. The main theories being discussed are ethics deontology and ethics consequences that were used or would have been used to resolve BP Oil Company oil spill. The author admits that there are several theories of ethics but those which are covered are Ethical consequences and deontology; ethical consequences are used to interpret that moral rightness is measured in terms of outcome of the actions being done whither they are good or bad. However, for one to be able to measure moral rightness mainly depend on the happiness being gained. Hence, in BP Oil Spill the decision to use cement which was not meeting the set standards in installation of the oil well was the main reason why it could not hold any longer and lead to it spilling. While, the ethical duties which were supposed to be employed are ethic deontology which is a judgment on morality acts and it is based on input vis-à-vis its output. In conclusion the author emphasized that it`s due to human carelessness which resulted on the oil spill and eventually such great destruction in the environment
Introduction
British Petroleum (BP) Oil Spill case could be categorized as the biggest oil drilling accident in history and even though it happened last year, the thought of the case is still lingering in people mind. According to Broder (2011), BP Oil Spill case actually was avoidable if related project organizations such as BP, Transocean, Halliburton and some subcontractors were vigilant with the actions that they engaged. Additionally, with the appointed as watchmen, government regulators failed in imposing their standard regulations to responsible parties to follow it. In this case ethical consequences and ethical deontology frameworks are used to analyze the situation and identify how the decisions that affected the accident were made and what factors were considered by BP, Transocean, Halliburton and Government regulators. By understanding on how decisions were made, resolve solutions are provided and can be used to prevent the accident occur in the future. Additionally in the report we focus on main companies who have capabilities to create decision that influencing the operation and indirect element in the involvement of the case which is government regulators.
First part of the report theories of ethic consequences and ethic deontology frameworks are explained so that the confusion on theories could be minimized. Identified the main issues of BP Oil Spill case by using related frameworks and in this report ethic consequence and ethic duties are used. Summary of the finding is presented at last part of the report and suggestion is included.
Framework Theories
There are many theories of ethic that available and it can be used by individual, group or cooperation to guide them to make decision. Each of ethic theories has its own understanding on how to decide whether the decision is good or bad and what measurement is used to differentiate whether the action is right or wrong. In this paper ethic consequences and ethic duties frameworks are used to analyze the BP Oil Spill accident. The definition of each ethic framework is explained so that the confusion could be minimized.
Ethical Consequences
As it shown from the name ethical consequences has interpretation that moral rightness is measured base on the outcome of the action is good or bad (SEP, 2011). Ethical consequence is part of classis model utilitarianism which is introduced by Jeremy Bentham in 1789 and continued by John Stuart Smith in 1861. Bentham suggests that to measure the moral rightness, it depends on how much happiness can be gained as for Mill, pleasure and pain are utilized to measure the moral rightness pleasure is better than pain. Like others ethic theories, utilitarianism has weakness for example according to Foot (1966) & Thomson (1976), it is alright to sacrifice one people to save life of four people because utilization is maximized. Is it moral act or immoral? Decision it depends how you see it.
BP Oil Spill case in Ethical Consequences
The latest oil rig accident was happened last year in the Gulf of Mexico give a lot attention around the world. According to Broder (2011) the accident could be prevented if the ongoing issues were rectified by related companies with rapid action and if government regulators always on top their tasks. Some findings were found that are believed the causes of BP oil accident for example BP Oil decided to use single pipe equipment to withdraw the oil from the bottom where oppositely experts said that it was unsuitable with the job that involve high pressure gas (Jennings, 2010), BP decision to use cement that does not meet the standard quality and do not have enough device installation to stabilize the well condition (Broder, 2011). Base on the investigation result shows that BP oil run their business with cost reduction focus include operational and material factors. As the result poor decision that BP made, Oil spill happened and it is unethical for them to make those decisions. It seems that BP using ethical consequence to make their decision and by focusing on cutting the company expense is the best method. Although it is pretty sure that BP does not have any intention to damage the environment, hurt people and create accident but their negligence towards operation cost them opposite results (Verschoor, 2010).
Further investigation showed that BP made decision based on time reduction for their operational. They rejected the request from engineers to extend the well work as they found out that there were some issues with installation of centralizers as it showed that inadequate number of centralizers was not installed properly (Jennings, 2010). Their decision to do short cut reflected on their companies employees action where keep the well operate even though some results show that there was an issues with the process and it was happened hours before the explosion came (Broder, 2011). Again both issues that were found could be connected with ethic. BP decision to save time by sacrificing the safety standard were unethical because they just see how to get lower operational time so they can reduce the cost and once again they focus on cost as basic value.
What kind estimation that they used for making those judgments? According to Verschoor (2010), oil platform that was used for oil drilling cost them at least $500,000 daily and the project itself already behind the schedule. We assume that BP just focused on daily expense and any further delays is another extra $500,000 every extra day. There is possibility that they compared the result from previous accident that happened in Texas City and Prudhoe where 193 barrels were spilled because of negligence in their operation and they were fined $87 million (Jennings, 2010). According to Robertson & Krauss (2010), every barrel that are spilled government will fines $1,100 at least and if carelessness is found as the main factor the fines increase to $4,300. From the given data above we make our assumption on how they made estimation:
Spill Degree

Barrels

Fines

Total Amount

Minimum

$193

$1,100

$212,300

Maximum

$193

$4,300

$822,900

Adapted from Jennings (2010) and Robertson & Krauss (2010)
With the above findings it is very crystal clear that even though BP has good risk management and procedures in field but they failed to make it work on the site. It failed because they just focus on how to reduce the cost expense and how to save operation time as everyday cost them $500,000 (Verschoor, 2010). Once again in this case BP actions were unethical because they oversaw the safety of their site and operation. 10 people died in the accident, environment was damaged in high degree and many people and business lost their income because of the accident. At the end the ethical consequence that they used was wrong as the loss are greater compare with they gain.
In our opinion the accident could be resolved if they did not focusing on one issue which is cost redu...