Free Essay Example on the Prudhoe Bay Oil Spill

It is with this great pleasure that I have decided to talk about the tragedy that has faced the British Petroleum company in the recent period about the Prudhoe Bay Oil Spill. British Petroleum Company being one of the greatest international company dealing with oil products in several continents has been on the public scrutiny pertaining its innovative solutions in the alternative energy field and commitment to environmental protection, eco-friendly practices. Therefore with this key issue of Prudhoe Bay Oil Spill affecting British Petroleum Company it is prudent to discuss about it. Summary of the points to be discussed include:

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Historical background of British Petroleum Company.

British Petroleum Company is a multinational company which is responsible for the millions of gallons of oil billowing into the Gulf of Mexico. In the recent years it has taken pain to smart its picture through expressing its aspiration to expand into greener sustainable energy. In 1901 William Knox DArcy (Australian- British mining magnate) won a concession from Iran to explore oil in the country and succeeded to find sulfurous patch. From his discovery there was emergence of Anglo-Persian Oil Company, thanks to the chief of the British navy Winston Churchill discovery of bottomless source of fuel in Persias wells, British government became the companys major stakeholder. Later in 1935 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. During the World War II due to the U.S fears of soviet power and desire to gain oil by the British led to a joint operation known as Operation Ajax. The company rebranded itself British Petroleum Company in 1954. The Prudhoe Bay oilfield came into being in 1977 due to the construction of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. BP has investments in oil production not only in Middle East but also in other places like Australia, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Abu Dhabi and Colombia.

British Petroleum investment in the environment:

Several projects have been undertaken by the BP to conserve the environment after it shifted its focus from the Middle East to unexplored areas like the Gulf of Mexico, Columbia among others. The company has had notable achievements over the years due to their environmental friendliness and social responsibility. Examples of these are BP Alternative Energy whose purpose was to generate and market low-carbon power from wind, hydrogen, solar among others, sharing of lessons learnt at Toledo in U.S about energy efficiency with the rest of the world, investigating water management policies, managing of green house emissions, investigating better models to curb oil spillage on land and improving pipeline gas delivery to Georgia and Turkey among many policies that BP has adapted to conserve the environment.

Prudhoe Bay Spillage:

This is the largest ever oil spill that has ever been experienced in the North Slope of Alaska which occurred in March 2006. The oil transit pipeline owned by BP leaked for almost 5 days and it was postulated to be due to the internal pipe corrosion. Despite it being heralded to be the worst, there are major oil spills that have ever happened like the explosion on the gas and oil production platform Piper Alpha of Occidental Petroleum, the Amoco Cadiz that drifted off the coast of Brittany among other tragedies. Due to this tragedy, BP is under the watchful eye of the US Congress and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the American government. Also BP in its capacity has launched investigations on the same matter in conjunction with the Alaskan state governmental regulators.

Based on this environmental issue of Prudhoe Bay oil spillage, the British Petroleum Company should invest more in the environmental safety and the maintenance of its pipelines if it is to improve its oil product marketability and influence.