Bp Oil Spill Globalization
The 20th of April 2010 will be marked as the worst day in British Petroleum PLC’s history, the day that there was an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig whilst drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and causing devastation to all the surrounding areas. The events of this day affected the global markets and relationships between countries substantially.
¹Daniels et al. (2009) states that globalisation is “The broadening set of interdependence relationships among people from different parts of a world that happens to be divided into nations.” and “the integration of world economies through the reduction of barriers to the movement of trade, capital, technology, and people”. And undoubtedly the disaster has affected the relationships between countries and affected the world economies, be it the relationship with the board of directors of BP and the US government or the change in value of BP PLC on the stock exchange.
²As a result of the oil spill the Obama administration imposed a six month moratorium on new deep water drilling operations which ended on the 12th of October. For twenty years previous to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico there had been a total ban on deep water off shore drilling. But during his presidency, Barack Obama lifted the barriers to allow deepwater drilling to take place and his reasons for doing this were said to be to reduce the reliance on importing oil in from abroad. The oil spill, however, has made the off shore drilling regulations more strict now meaning that the US will still have to import almost all of its oil from overseas. The effects on globalisation being both positive, as the US still trades a lot for oil overseas, and negative as the barriers for trade have increased as the moratorium and new deep water drilling prevented drilling for 6 months. Also, the spill has led to an increase in regulations for deep water drilling on the US coastline and now uncertainty amongst oil companies as they are
¹Daniels et al. (2009) states that globalisation is “The broadening set of interdependence relationships among people from different parts of a world that happens to be divided into nations.” and “the integration of world economies through the reduction of barriers to the movement of trade, capital, technology, and people”. And undoubtedly the disaster has affected the relationships between countries and affected the world economies, be it the relationship with the board of directors of BP and the US government or the change in value of BP PLC on the stock exchange.
²As a result of the oil spill the Obama administration imposed a six month moratorium on new deep water drilling operations which ended on the 12th of October. For twenty years previous to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico there had been a total ban on deep water off shore drilling. But during his presidency, Barack Obama lifted the barriers to allow deepwater drilling to take place and his reasons for doing this were said to be to reduce the reliance on importing oil in from abroad. The oil spill, however, has made the off shore drilling regulations more strict now meaning that the US will still have to import almost all of its oil from overseas. The effects on globalisation being both positive, as the US still trades a lot for oil overseas, and negative as the barriers for trade have increased as the moratorium and new deep water drilling prevented drilling for 6 months. Also, the spill has led to an increase in regulations for deep water drilling on the US coastline and now uncertainty amongst oil companies as they are