British Petroleum ( Bp ) - 2547 Words

BP is a British multinational oil and gas company; whose headquarters is on London. BP developed its reach in America by buying up companies like Standard Oil of Ohio, ARCO and Amoco (Tharoor). â€Å"Twenty years ago, BP was nothing like the powerful multinational corporation it is today† (PBS: Frontline). BP became this powerful company by using an ideology known as â€Å"run to failure.† In other words, use things until they break in order to save money (PBS: Frontline). Over the years, many oil companies have faced legal problems regarding the meeting of environmental standards, most notably was British Petroleum (BP). In recent memory, British Petroleum (BP) has been facing troubles year in and year out. In 2005, an explosion in Texas City†¦show more content†¦It brought BP a lot of assets† (PBS: Frontline). The BP refinery in Texas City extends over â€Å"two square miles on the outskirts of Galveston† (Schorn). The BP refinery in Texas City is the third largest refinery in the United States. The Texas City refinery had been known to have significant problems and was known to be a dangerous place to work. In other words the refinery was falling apart (PBS: Frontline). On March 23, 2005, 15 people were killed and 170 were injured in an explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery (Schorn). â€Å"It was the worst workplace accident in this country since 1989† (Schorn). BP, like Amoco, considered replacing an antiquated blowdown drum used to collect gasoline. However, BP decided to bank a saving of $150,000 and just repair the blowdown drum, because â€Å"capital expenditure was very tight† (Schorn). According to many experts, this savings was the direct cause of the 2005 explosion. On March 23, 2005, BP employees began restarting a unit that had been down for repairs. The blowdown drum began to fill with gasoline, but it overflowed and sent a geyser of gasoline into the air (PBS: Frontline). The cloud of gas created from the drum was ignited by an idle truck. The blast that followed destroyed several office trailers full of workers parked nearby (Schorn). After the blast, several investigations were performed by Chemical Safety Board and Secretary of State James Baker to discover the cause of the explosion. The investigation