Scribd
Upload
9 views2 pages

Article 1

The document provides an investigative overview of BP's troubled history, highlighting significant incidents and the company's corporate culture over the past decade. It discusses key events such as the Texas refinery explosion, Alaska accidents, and the Deepwater Horizon spill, alongside the leadership changes from Lord John Browne to Bob Dudley. The report raises concerns about BP's safety practices and government oversight, emphasizing the company's evolution and challenges in maintaining a safe operational environment.

Uploaded by

Josphat Mwania
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
9 views2 pages

Article 1

The document provides an investigative overview of BP's troubled history, highlighting significant incidents and the company's corporate culture over the past decade. It discusses key events such as the Texas refinery explosion, Alaska accidents, and the Deepwater Horizon spill, alongside the leadership changes from Lord John Browne to Bob Dudley. The report raises concerns about BP's safety practices and government oversight, emphasizing the company's evolution and challenges in maintaining a safe operational environment.

Uploaded by

Josphat Mwania
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

BP's Troubled Past

Investigative reporting and documents -- some never before published -- on major


incidents at BP facilities over the past decade that grabbed headlines and raised questions
about the company's record and performance and government oversight.

 Its Corporate Culture


 Texas Refinery Explosion
 Alaska Accidents & Spills
 Thunder Horse Rig
 Deepwater Horizon: Reporting
 Deepwater Horizon: Multimedia
 Deepwater Horizon: Where Were the Regulators?

Its Corporate Culture


For a broad overview, check out reporting from ProPublica on years of internal BP incident
probes, a New York Times timeline, this McClatchy article on BP's record of legal and ethical
violations, and the Center for Public Integrity's analysis of safety problems at BP's Texas City
and Toledo, Ohio, refineries.

Twenty years ago, BP was nothing like the powerful multinational corporation it is today. In
1995, Lord John Browne, an engineer and BP manager with a reputation as an aggressive cost-
cutter, became CEO. Browne, described in this Observer article as the "enigma who brought BP
in from the cold," was known for making big deals. In the late '90s and early 2000s, BP bought
Amoco, Arco and five other companies -- quadrupling the company's value. This New York
Times article describes Browne as trying to turn BP into a company "that is as much at home in
Silicon Valley as in the Oil Belt." Browne was also known as the rare oil industry executive who
acknowledged climate change; in 1997, he told an audience at Stanford University "There is now
an effective consensus among the world's leading scientists and serious and well-informed
people outside the scientific community that there is a discernible human influence on the
climate and a link between the concentration of carbon dioxide and the increase in temperature,"
and he tried to rebrand BP as "Beyond Petroleum" in the early 2000s. The company's new logo
featured Helios, the ancient Greek sun god, and Browne was dubbed the "Sun King" by the news
media.

Browne surrounded himself with a group of young executives he dubbed his "turtles" -- named
after the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. One of those turtles, Tony Hayward, an engineer
who headed oil exploration worldwide, was chosen to succeed Browne after Browne was forced
out following a scandal about his private life. Hayward spoke candidly about BP's problems at
Stanford Business School in July 2009 and he promised to reform BP's safety culture.
Hayward himself was forced out after the Deepwater Horizon spill and replaced by Bob Dudley,
an American who had headed BP ventures in Russia. This profile of Dudley from The Guardian
depicts the American's "calmness under fire" as a reason he was elevated to the top job.

You might also like