Jason Sidhu's Blog

“Drilling for oil is risky and dangerous to be sure. However, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that more than bad luck was involved.”

British Petroleum (BP) is an enormous multinational corporation that had a revenue of nearly US$400 billion in 2011.

Don’t let the logo fool you, BP isn’t nearly as innocent as it seems. On April 20th 2010 BP released up to 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in an explosion that also killed 11 of its workers. For 3 months the spill was difficult to contain and it flowed uncontrollably through the defenceless waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Here is a time-lapse map of how this massive oil spill rapidly spread.

This oil spill could have been prevented if BP would have allocated a tiny fraction of its assets towards the safety of not only its workers but the environment as well. Many safety regulations were avoided as BP attempted to take shortcuts in its drilling process. The large amount of negligence is clearly unethical. Countless lawsuits have been filed towards the corporation and now there is an accusation of “gross negligence“.

Whether or not BP will face further discipline remains to be seen.