Contingency Planning

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Occupational Health and Safety

Any organization or business can undergo through an unplanned accident that could culminate into the disruption of normal functioning or operations. These accidents might range from fire, floods, information safety accident to a grave computer malfunctioning. The business management should therefore put in place effective contingency plans that may facilitate the mitigation of such accidents at the minimum possible time to ensure that the operations of the business go back to normal at a fast rate. Some companies however avoid the establishment of contingency plans, which has culminated into financial losses in the face of unplanned threats to occupational health and safety.

BP Oil

            In 20 April 2010, the company’s deep horizon based in the Gulf of Mexico suffered an explosion that culminated into the death of 11 crew-members as well as the famous oil spill of the Gulf of Mexico. Many people suffered losses along the Gulf, with anglers being affected the most due to the deaths of the marine life that they depended on for their livelihood (Dunham, 2010). The reason behind the company’s inability to contain the oil spillage was the lack of a contingency plan to deal with oil spillage whereas the same company suffered a prior oil spillage in 1965.

Owing to the bad publicity attached to the oil spill, the company stock fell at the rate of 52% within the 50 days that followed the oil spillage (Dunham, 2010). The stocks fell from $60.57 as registered on April 20 2010 to $29.20 on June 9 2010. This is a loss that could have been avoided if the company had set-up a contingency plan after the 1965 spillage. In the same case, the company is facing different lawsuits in which it has to pay compensations to the people who were affected by the oil spillage.

TOTAL UK Limited

            This company together with Texaco owns the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal, which was plagued with an oil explosion that caused the Buncefield fire on11 December 2005 (Taylor, 2009). The cause of the fire was the lack of safety measures that could prevent the exiting of fuel from storage tanks as well as preventing the fuel from forming flammable vapor after its escape. 244 injuries were reported with more than 200 people being evacuated from their homes. By 14 December 2005, the fire had not been extinguished due to the breaking out of new fires.

This means that the company did not have a contingency plan incase of a break-out of a fire. 2,700 claims were filed with different courts (Taylor, 2009). In October 2008, the main trial began in the High Court with Total claiming that it was not liable for the damages caused by the fire, as it had not foreseen the damage it caused through the fire. The case was concluded on 20th March 2009, with Total facing damage claims of 700 million pounds. The company had to re-model the oil depot.

Massey Energy Company

            The company in charge of a mine in West Virginia was faced with the death of 25 miners in April 7, 2010, in the underground Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch coal mine. The main cause of the problem was faulty ventilations (Mufson, et al, 2010). Four days later the bodies of four missing men were recovered totaling the deaths to 29. Lack of a contingency plan in mitigating mine disasters was the main problem plaguing the company as it has suffered different mining disasters with the recent one being the most serious.

This disaster culminated into the fining of the company of $382,000 because of the faulty ventilations that were the main cause of the mining disaster. The company is so far facing $1.3 million in proposed penalties for both the above disaster and the other disasters that it has been involved in since 2005 (Mufson, et al, 2010). The company is also facing claims of bribing judges due to the other disasters that it has been involved in

Conclusion

            If the companies above had contingency plans, they would not have faced the above financial losses. They should however face the losses courageously but they should formulate contingency plans to mitigate unforeseen calamities in future to ensure that they can are not liable to any losses in future and if any accident occurs they can manage to contain it with least possible damages and a t a faster rate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited:

Dunham, Will. “Cameron Fears BP’s “Destruction”, Stock Plunges.” Reuters. Web. June 25, 2010. Retrieved from http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE64U0OW20100625

Mufson, Steven, Markon, Jerry and O’Keefe, Ed.”West Virginia Mine has Been Cited for Myriad Safety Violations.” The Washington Post. Web. April 7, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/05/AR2010040503877.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010040505519

Taylor, Matthew. “Oil Company Total Admits Buncefield Fire Failings.” Guardian. Web. November 13, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/13/total-admits-charges-buncefield