chad reese

BP’s Operational Management System (OMS) uses ISO 14001 as a guide to identify “key risks” in operational activity. The OMS provides a single framework and a codified language to prioritize information dissemination across the various business units and operations, as well as investment decisions and misconduct reporting. The safety and operations audit team covered 94 of BP’s operations between 2007 and 2009, and all five of BP’s US-based refineries have adopted the Operational Management System. The Operations Academy teaches senior management and front-line operational personnel how to think in terms of the OMS.

By the 2009 BP Sustainability Plan, the OMS rollout was implemented in 70 refineries and petrochemicals plants and was 80% complete. The incidence of injury at sites managed by the OMS was down 75% from the decade before. Although fatal accidents still occurred in 2009, the 2009 Sustainability Report claims “98% of BP employees consider that line management is receptive to honest information about safety.”

The BP 2009 Strategy Presentation (PowerPoint PDF) was surprisingly lacking in its focus on environment, safety and social implications. Although the presentation reported “safe, compliant and reliable operations: our No. 1 priority”, the majority of the report focuses on corporate simplification, including a significant reduction in senior management.

The presentation table of oil spills greater than 1 recorded barrel (p.6) declined from 2000 to 2007, with a plateau at 2007 and 2008. To say that the table’s trend toward zero is now skewed is an understatement of record proportions. “Collaborative and open innovation models”, along with a “long-term commitment to research and development” (p.12), are also reported as major motivations.

From 2008 to 2009 the focus shifts from simplifying the business and restoring revenues to cost efficiency and safe operations. Deepwater oil resources and reserves do not make up a large part of the overall plan – conventional oil is still the dominant supply of oil. Mention is made of “inherently reliable facilities to monitor, predict and manage corrosion to increase operating efficiency”, but the main focus of the presentation is on “pushing reservoir limits” and increasing production in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has the largest remaining resources of all the major players in the Gulf of Mexico.

As noted in the “Protected Areas” section of the BP website, BP quotes the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) definition of a protected area as ‘a clearly defined geographical space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values’. BP expands upon the definition by attributing to protected areas (which can be private, governmental or public), characteristics of biological diversity, ecosystem services, climate change mitigation strategies and places of spiritual and community significance. If the environment around a potential oil extraction site is deemed sensitive according to the BP’s definitions, a “high-level risk assessment” is performed. If a site is deemed acceptable to exploration after performing a risk assessment, the site is continuously monitored under the conditions of the Operating Management System.

Although oil from the free-flowing Deepwater well has covered over 100 miles of coastline, and the recent “top kill” attempt to plug the well has failed – and oil may continue to flow unabated until August – the Gulf of Mexico was not one of BP’s major operating sites “located adjacent to or within” a protected area.