Texas-based co crisis communication.

Company Involved: BP (British Petroleum) Texas City Refinery

http://www.icem.org/en/27-North-America/1554-BP’s-Texas-Oil-Refinery-Blast-May-See-Criminal-Indictments

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9007590&contentId=7014495


Following an outage on Wednesday, March 23, 2005, an explosion and consequential fire occurred which took 15 lives, and injured at least 170 people. Reports later cited many incidences as being the cause, along with the jobs performances or lack thereof, during the day. The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions a.k.a www.icem.org/ published an article called, "BP’s Texas Oil Refinery Blast May See Criminal Indictments" which mainly focused on numbers. The numbers were used to measure deaths, injuries, and the large fines assigned to BP, due to mismanagement. The article was considerably brief, and hardly sensationalistic, in comparision to other articles I'm sure are out there.



The press release from BP Oil is much more technical, suggesting it was a more natural chemical explosion than one resulting from inadequate resources, and improper maitenance. They did however mention some negligence, but place it almost as a footnote to the technical explanation. BP also included the same numbers of fines, but not deaths as the other article, but only after they represented the relief and aid money being arranged, rather than the deaths. They also site that the company doesn't necessarily agree with what the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration charged them with. They ended the release with intent to reform the wrongs and enact preventative measures.

Both articles don't really choose an extreme side, both seem as objective as allowed in their separate circumstances. Both included much of the same information but were different in what information surrounding the case they highlighted.