British Petroleum Oil Spill Disaster: Crisis Communication Analysis

Topics: Petroleum, Oil spill, BP Pages: 13 (836 words) Published: November 5, 2015
Crisis Communication Analysis
British Petroleum
Gulf Of Mexico 2010

Biggest Oil Spill

in History
Jennifer Fuenzalida
Jorge Luis Torres
Ignacio Muñoz
Santiago Duque

AGENDA

Brief Facts About the Biggest Oil Spill in History

BP’ s Communication Strategy

Result of BP’s Communication Strategy

How Should this Crisis Have Been Managed?

Timeline BP History of Disasters

1908

UK:
British
Petroleum, is an
energy
company,
dedicated to the
production of oil
and natural gas.

April 6
Texas City:
Explosion in Texas

City & a spill of 244
tons of chemical
compounds

2005

2006

August
6:
Alaska
A spill of 267,000
gallons of crude
oil.

2010

April
Gulf of
Mexico:
20

biggest oil spill in
history

Brief facts about the biggest oil spill in
history
11 people and around 2600
animals die in the explosion
More than
200,000
fishermen’s
families were
affected.
More than 4
attempts were
made to shut off the
flow of oil

05

5 Million barrels of oil
escape every day below
the surface
The spill covered
5,000 square
kilometers
It took about 2 months
to shut off the oil (July
16)
Shares of the company
fell by 55%

AGENDA

Brief Facts about the Biggest Oil Spill in History

BP’ s Communication Strategy

Result of the BP’s Communication Strategy

How Should this Crisis Have Been Managed?

BP Communication Strategy
Management

How did the managers do it?

How did BP use Social Media?

BP Communication Strategy
Management
Responsibility
Tony Hayward:
“BP assumes full
responsibility
for the spill”
April 30, 2010

Compensation
BP Realeased Earning
Report:
Oil Spill was briefly
mentioned.
April 27, 2010

Doug Suttles:
Tony Hayward in a Today
“Will be down to a relative
Show:
trickle in few days” (One
“It was not our accident”
week after the oil was
May 02, 2010 flowing at a rate of 10–
Tony Hayward:
35K barrels/day)
Jun 2010
“The effects of the spill
Tony
Hayward:
would be very modest
“There is no one who wants
compared to the entire
this thing to be over
ocean”
than me, I would like my
Jun 2010
life back”
Jun 2010

BP Communication Strategy
Social Media
Responsibility
BP Twitter:
“BP pladges full support to
Deepwater Horizon probes”
27 April 2010.

Compensation
BP Facebook:
Provided detailed information
about how much oil have been
recovered.Status
of
the
compensations.
02 May 2010

BP Website:
BP Disclosed videos related to
Spill
18 May 2010.

BP Website:
Imagen with employee
momitoring more screem
than actually.

Steps Up to Chaos

•
• No tactics to

A brief list of errors

reach all
stakeholders

Stock market tendency - A good stability monitor

•
•

Cero
sincerity

•

No

•

es
•

No timing

•

No methods

No
Preparation

•

Cero

Cero
leadership

•

Blaming its
suppliers

Improper
channels

methodologi

•

•

•

No body

• Censure & limit

language

the flow of

Cero

information

Image
disaster

•

Unwelcome
actions

•

Big lie
uncovered

connection
•

Ambiguity

Focus on
legal topics

accuracy

No
Empathy

Blame
Shifting

Spokesperso
n

Stakeholder
& Media

Company
Truthfulnes

AGENDA

Brief Facts about the Biggest Oil Spill in History

BP’ s Communication Strategy

Result of the BP’s Communication Strategy

How Should this Crisis Have Been Managed?

Result of BP’s Communication StrategyManagement

Re-structured order of importance of stakeholders.
 NGO and communities took more
importance.
Government took a hard position against the company.
 USA initiated a lawsuit against BP
 President Obama calls on BP to take responsibility
 President Obama appointed Thad Allen as National Incident Commander
and 100
received an increased risk classification of BBB from AAA
BP fell out of the FTSE

Social Media

Result of BP’s...
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