Abstract
This case study describes about the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Disaster, which can be said as the worst ever environmental damage caused by the industrial disaster. In March 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez, which owned by the leading oil exploration and production company in the world called Exxon, spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil in the Prince William Sound in Alaskan region that caused major ecological and financial damage to the people of the region. Asides, this case study examines the aim and objectives of Exxon Mobil Corporation, industrial processes and operations, risks in all areas that lead to the oil spill disaster and pollution, consequences of all the hazards of the oil spill disaster and the improvements and changes in the management systems so to prevent the disaster from happening.
Introduction
Over the last 125 years Exxon Mobil has evolved from a regional marketer of kerosene in the US to the largest publicly traded petroleum and petrochemical enterprise in the world. They has famous brand such as Exxon, Esso and Mobil in most of the countries. They are the world's largest refiner and marketer of petroleum products and have a technology company, applying science and innovation to find better, safer and cleaner ways to deliver the energy the world needs.
But on March 23, 189 the Exxon Valdez, an oil supertanker operated by Exxon and under command of Captain Joseph J. Hazelwood left the port of Valdez headed for long beach of Prince William Sound made a world's historical disaster. The ship maneuvered out of the shipping lane to avoid the icebergs. According to the official report, the ship carried 53 094 510 US Gallons of oil, of which 10.8 million US Gallon were spilled into the Prince William Sound. This oil spill caused a lot of damages and impacts to the global.
Objectives
Exxon Mobil Corporation used to be the world's premier petroleum and petrochemical company. To achieve their objectives, they continuously reached a superior financial and operating result while adhering to the highest standard of business conduct. The company firmly believes that the way it achieves results is as important as the results themselves and continue to apply its expertise and resources to the daily challenge of providing energy to the world in an economically, environmentally, and socially responsible manner. These unwavering expectations provide the foundation for the commitments to those with whom they interact such as the Shareholders, customers, employees and communities.
For Shareholders, they committed to enhancing the long-term value of the investment entrusted by the Exxon Mobil Cooperation by their shareholders and they expect that their shareholders will reward with superior returns. For the customer, the company already commits to be innovative and responsive while offering high quality products and services to their customer. In addition, for the employee of the company, they will strive to hire and retail the most qualified people and maximize their opportunities for success through training and development. Finally, for the communities, the company committed to be a good corporate citizen in all places around the world.
Above is the Management chart for the Exxon Mobile Company. The type is the process structure that they using is continuos process which they the type of the products that they manufacturing are commodity and had a huge market and customers around the world. In addition, their product demand is very stable and high. So they had an esteem organisation with 3 types of quotes which can be catogorized as product and services, energy and environment and community and society. The first term, product and services provides services around the world for both business and consumer use. The purpose for the second term is to meet the incresing demand for energy poses for many challenges, increasing efficiency, developing new supplies and safeguarding the environment. Finally the motive for the third term is for meeting the challenge of sustainability requires that effectively address and engage on all there issues while delivering on their primary responsibility to society, finding and providing the reliable supllies of energy needed for progress and development. So they concern about the safety, healt at the workplace, human rights, women's economic opportunity, community investment and etc. In addition, the type of processes they using are mass and continuous which they had a very high value of demand, had limited range of skills and equipment monitors based and also the products that they manufacture were continuous and repetitive assembly lines.
Oil Refinery and the Process
An oil refinery is an industrial process plant where the crude oil is processed and refined into most useful petroleum products. For examples, gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas. Crude oil also can defined as petroleum and it is a mixture of different hydrocarbons. It is also typically large sprawling industrila complexus with extensive piping running throughout, carrying stream of fluids between large chemical processing units. So below is the simple diagram for the crude oil process:
Crude oil is segregrated into fractions by fractional distillation. The fractions at the top of the fractionating column have the lower boiling points than the fraction at the bottom. The heavy bottom fractions are often cracked into lighter, more useful products. All the fractions are processed further in other refining units. The main equipment is a tall cylinder called a fractionator. Inside this column there are many trays, or horizontal plates and located at different heights. Each trays collects a different fraction when it cools to its own boiling point and condenses.
Raw or unprocessed crude oil is not to useful in the form it comes in out of the ground. Although it has low viscosity and low sulfur, the oil has been used directly as a burner fuel for steam vessel propulsion, the lighter elemnts form explosive vapors in the fuel for steam vessel propulsion, the lighter elements form explosive vapors in the fuel tanks and so it is quite dangerous, especially in warships. For this and many uses the oil needs to be separated into parts and refined before use in fuels and lubricants.
The risks in all areas that lead to the oil spill disaster and pollution
The risk for the oil spill disaster is very high. It can be catagorized to few factors of risks such as economical impacts, environment impacts and others. Examples for the economic impacts are as the recreational spoert fishing spot was seriously spoiled due to this disaster. This loss was estimated based on the impacts of the spill on sport fishing activities, which can be consider the impact on the number of anglers, the number of sport fishing trips, the areas fished, the species fished for and the length of these trips. According to the offical report on this disaster, the loss estimated to be around 580 million dollars. Aside, the Alaska also losses terible in tourism. The spill caused both negative and possitive effects but major effects occur were negatives. The negative effects are as per furnish below:
Decreased resident and non-resident vacation due to the lack of available visitor services like accommodations, charter boats and air taxis.
Severe labor shortage in the visitor industry throughout the state due to the traditional service industry workres seeking high paying spill clean - up jobs.
Fifty nine percent of businesses in the most effected areas reported spill related cancellations and sixteen percent reported businesswas less than expected due to this disaster.
The business segments mist negatively affected by this oil spill included lodges and resorts, Alaska based package tour copanies, guided outdoor activities, charter and sightseeing boats.
The research conducted by the McDowell Group and the Alaska Visitor Association.
The positive effects are such as existence value where the economists tried to estimate the damage to so - called non user or existence value of the Prince William Sound region in the wake of the spill. This is an attempt top measure that cannot be observed in the market, which refers the value to the public of a pristine Prince William Sound.
However, the long term effects on Alaska visitor industry are difficult to judge at this point in time. Many businesses feel Alaska'a image is tarnished as a result of the spill. Government agencies are concerned abot the long - term impacts to natural resources, such as fish stocks and the effects this may have on sportfishing. The Alaska Visitor Association research shows 6% of the general population still mentiones the oil spill as their initial impression of Alaska and has negative opinion towards Alaska as a place to vacation.
Besides, the persistent nature of oil in produce chronic, long -term exposure risks from some species such as, chronic exposurers for years after the spill to oil persisting in sedimentary refuges were evident from biomarkers in fish, sea otters and seaducks intimately associate with sediments for egg laying or foraging. Asides, the recovery process on rocky shorelines has been lengthened for a decade or more. Dramatic initial loss of cover by the most important boigenic habitat provider, the rockweed.
The consequences of all the hazards of the oil spill disaster
The consequences of the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster are worst and made a huge defects to the environment, economy of the country and political as well. Petroleum - derived contaminants constitute one of the most prevalent sources of environmental degradation in the industrialized world. In large concentrations, the hydrocarbon molecules that make up crude oil and petroleum products are highly toxic to many organism, including human being. It also contains trace amount of sulfur and nitrogen compounds, which are dangerous by themselves and can react with the environment to produce secondary poisonous chemicals which effects populted areas an ecosystems around the globe. The Marine Mammals and seabirds are at great risk from floating oil because they have routine contact with the se surface. Oiling of fur or feathers decreased the insulation capasity and was lead to death from hypothermia, smothering, drowning, and ingestion of toxic hydrocarbons. According to the media reports, the scientists believed a mass mortalities of 1000 to 2800 sea otters, 302 harbor seals and unprecedented numbers of seabirds death. In addition, they also estimated sea birds death at 250 000 per day immediately after the oil spill. Crude oil that penetrates deeply into beaches can remain relatively fresh for years but however the oil will later come back to the surface and affect nearby animals.
In addition, Oil spill effects the sea birds and mammals are substantial over the long - term through interactions between natural environmental stressors and compromised health of exposed animals, through chronic toxic exposure from ingesting contaminated prey or during foraging around persistent sedimentary pools of oil and through distruption of vital social functions in socially organized species. Besides, exposure of fish embryos to weathered oil will cause abnormal in growth and deformities and cause the reproductive failure of the species and aslo destroyed the habitat of the plants which provide three dimensional structure for juvenile animals to hide from predators.
Because Prince William Sound contained many rocky coves where the oil collected, a decision made to displace it with high pressure hot water. However, this also displaced and destroyed the microbial populations on the shorelines like plankton which be the basic of the coastal marine food chain. The cleanup project also eaten up a huge budget because it's a very difficult job to clean up such a huge area. The first cleanup response was through the use of a dispersant, a surfactant and sovent mixture. A private company applied dispersant with a helicopter and dispersant bucket. Because there was not enough wave action to mix the dispersant with the oil in the water, the use of the dispersant was discontinued. After that, one trial explosion was also conducted during the early stages of the spill to burn the oil and the test was relatively succesful, reducing 113 400litres of oil to 1134litres of removal residue but because of unfavorable weather no additional burning was attempted. This step also caused the air pollution due to the burning of the oil.
The Improvements and Changes in the Management Systems to Prevent the Disaster from Happening
It is necessary to make improvements to avoid such terrible disaster because it caused so many impacts, which effects the environment, economy, political and etc. In the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez accident, Exxon Mobil increased its long time commitments as a safeguard to the environment, employees and operating communities worldwide as well. To improve the oil spill prevention, Exxon Mobil follows the effective steps as:
Modified the tanker routes so that it becomes more safety.
Conducted drug and alcohol testing programs for safety sensitive positions.
Restricted safety sensitive positions to employees with no history of substance abuse.
Implemented more extensive periodic assessment of Exxon Mobil vessels and facilities.
Training programs for vessel captains and pilots were held to train safety precautions during the hazard period.
Asides, they also improved their responsibility and capability during the spill event occurs like: [8]
Exxon Mobil becomes a founding member of every major oil spill response around the world.
There are over 1000 Exxon Mobil employees involved in oil spill response teams all over the world.
They hold frequent, extensive oil spill drills at various Exxon Mobil global locations.
Finally they also developed and applied new spill detecting technology.
Other than that, they also focused on environmental performance such as they committed towards maintaining their headship in technically proficient, industry leader in safety and environment for long - term motives. The Exxon Mobil marine continued to voluntarily find and support innovative ways that often exceed regulatory standards to enhance the safety, security and reliability of marine transportation. For examples, there are two escort vessels accompany each tanker passing through the entire Prince William Sound. They are not to only watch over the tankers, but also are capable of assisting them in the event of an emergency, such as loss of power or loss of rudder control. To boot, specially trained and highly experienced marine pilots in Prince William Sound, are aboard the ship for 25 miles out of the 70-mile transit through the Sound. Moreover, weather criteria for safe navigation are firmly established.
Conclusion
As the conclusion, we have to prevent this kind of disaster because the consequences that it creates are priceless. It really made the global changes in environmental, economy and others. So oil companies should follow the health and safety requirements that create by the respective council or organization in order to help a company to operate in effective and also esteem. For examples, they should strictly follow Health and Management Systems, which means that an organisation controls risk through the management process. The five key elements of Safety Management that they need to follow are policy organizing, planning and implementing, monitoring and reviewing or auditing. For examples, they should come up with spill caused map so that they can find the root cause of the oil spill and how to overcome it in the future. Below is the sample oil spill cause map:
Besides, they should obey the ISO 14000 Series, which is about the environmental Management System in order to prevent this kind of tragedy, occur again.
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