Business Ethics Case Study - Shell drilling for oil in Artic waters.

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Contents Page

     Page

  1. Introduction………………………………………………………………..2

  1. The Case:                                                                        

  1. The situation and key facts…………………….…………….2

  1. The key stakeholders and their involvement……………..3

  1. The ethics and values of the case…………………………..3

  1. Solutions

  1. Solution one……………………………………..………..…….5

  1. Solution two……………………………………….…………....5

  1. Solution three………………………………..…………………6

  1. Evaluation

  1. Evaluation one……………………………………………...…..7

  1. Evaluation two……………………………………………….....7

  1. Evaluation three……………………..…………………………8

  1. Conclusion………………………………………………………………...9

  1. List of references……………………………………………………….10

Introduction

Corporate social responsibility has become a prevailing term when examining the responsibilities of businesses, beyond economic and legal obligations, in making decisions. The degree of ethical norms the oil and gas industry is abiding by affects not only the consumers, who may suffer from high petrol prices, but also the environment, such as from oil spills.

This paper will first describe the situation of the oil drilling programme in Arctic waters, which has raised a controversial dispute. In addition, its impacts on stakeholders will be discussed. Beyond concerning the key stakeholders, the ethics of Shell Petroleum in its new project are being reviewed by justifying its code of conduct. Finally, three approaches are suggested along with evaluation.

The case

1        The situation and key facts

In July 2012, Royal Dutch Shell, one of the oil giants, implemented an offshore drilling project in the Arctic Ocean’s Chukch and Beaufort seas. Peter Slaiby, the vice-president of Shell Alaska, outlined that the hydrocarbon reserves in the Arctic contained nearly 27 billion barrels (Biger, 2012).

However, the issue was disputed by Greenpeace (n.d.) in a campaign named ‘Save the Arctic’ which claimed that oil spills could not be entirely avoided. The Pew Environment Group NGO (n.d.) explains that the hostile weather conditions double the manual error significantly. Moreover, for geographical reasons, no connections like roads, airports and ports could help buffer the influx of equipment and personnel. Therefore, a blowout would be a catastrophe (ibid).

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2        The key stakeholders and their involvement

Different groups are interested in and concerned about the Arctic drilling issue in different ways. According to the Pew Environment Group (n.d.), since Arctic people, such as Inupia Eskimo and Gwich’in, hunt bowhead whales as a sacred hunting culture and use marine sources for their subsistence, there is a direct link between the health of indigenes and the quality of the water which  is vulnerable to oil spills (ibid).  

Besides, Shell shareholders are interested in the potential profit brought by the drilling project while weighing the cost. For example, Shell’s profitability ...

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