Sustainability, a buzz word today, focuses on the impact of organisational activity on environment, society and economy

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Sustainability, a buzz word today, focuses on the impact of organisational activity on environment, society and economy at large.

The BP oil spill at the Gulf of Mexico is the world’s biggest environmental disaster to date. You are required to read the below mentioned facts on BP oil spill and discuss the followings:

1.The impact of oil spill on environment, society and economic (ESS).

2.Identify the stakeholders impacted by this disaster.

3.Discuss the five tiers (Tier 1 to Tier 5) of environmental costs applicable in this case.

The BP Oil Spill

The BP Oil Spill was the most massive oil spill in U.S. history. The cause of the discharge was an explosion on the British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010. That explosion resulted in 11 deaths and the release of million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf over 87 days. The well was capped on July 15.

Ownership of the rig itself was by offshore drilling contractor, Transocean, and was leased to BP to explore the Macondo Prospect. Macondo is an oil field off the coast of Louisiana. BP pled guilty to 14 felony charges from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and paid fines of more than $4 billion on settling the case in 2012. Those fines, plus payments to settle various civil claims, cost BP more than $40 billion.

In 2013, Transocean pled guilty to criminal charges and a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act and paid over $1 billion in civil and criminal fines.

BREAKING DOWN BP Oil Spill

The BP Oil Spill brought significant pressure on the company to not only mitigate its impact during drilling but also to manage substantial negative publicity in the months and years following the spill. The settlement, which finalized in April 2016, became the most significant environmental settlement in U.S. history.

Before it capping, the well spilled 3.19 million barrels of oil into the waters of the Gulf and onto the shorelines of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The spill devastated the fishing and tourism industries of the Gulf Coast region and caused the death of countless numbers of marine life and seabirds, many of which were endangered species.

In 2011, the government listed the causes for the explosion were:

Defective cement on the borehole
Failure of two valves, a gas alarm, and battery backup systems
Misinterpretation of pressure tests
Insufficient management and industry oversight

Impact on the People and Wildlife of the Gulf Coast

During the spill, the government temporarily halted all offshore oil drilling activities, which threatened the jobs of thousands of offshore oil workers in the Gulf region. The jury is still out on the lasting economic and environmental effects of BP oil spill. Many of the individuals who were without work in the fishing, tourism, and oil industries could not meet their personal obligations, which caused a cascading effect throughout the region. Also, concerns remain about oil that sunk to the floor of the Gulf and the retardants used to mitigate the spill. Investigations continue into public health issues.

The Restore Act of 2012 set aside 80-percent of the BP oil spill settlement funds for Gulf states ecological and economic recovery. The remaining 20-percent of funds went to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, established in 1986. The Trust assists in the removal and assessment of damage from oil-related activities.

Impact of the BP Oil Spill on BP plc Profits and Stock Price

The oil spill significantly disrupted bp's financial performance, and it's stock price as news continued to spread on the extent of the disaster.

From late April of 2010 through June of that year, BP common stock lost more than half its value with the stock’s trading volume surged. As traders hurried to divest themselves the number of shares moved jumped from a few million shares per day before the spill to hundreds of millions of shares per day in the weeks that followed. These traders would later flow back into the stock.

In July of 2010, British Petroleum reported a record quarterly loss of $17 billion as it set aside about $32 billion to cover spill-related costs. The company announced that its CEO, Tony Hayward, would be leaving his post later in the year. The company also suspended dividend payments until early 2011.

Some BP gasoline station owners in the U.S. reported declining sales and attributed that trend to negative publicity for the BP brand associated with the disaster.

By November 2010 the company began reporting profits again, announcing earnings of $1.8 billion for the quarter ending in September of that year. Although that was significantly less than the approximately $5 billion in the same quarter in 2009, it represented a turnaround in the company’s financial performance.