Ethical Issues

There are several issues concerning ethics revolving around the Montara oil spill. Comparing some of the guidelines in the  Engineers Australia Code Of Ethics, some points can be drawn from this disaster.

Section 1 of the Code of ethics : Demonstrate Integrity; can be used to illustrate some interesting points;

Section 1.1 - Act on the basis of a well informed conscience

Section 1.2 - Be honest and trustworthy

When the drilling supervisor told the superintendent that the corrosion cap had been installed- he may not have been acting in accordance with this integrity. Or, the people working on the drill site at the time were not working under this regime. Only if he was certain that the cap was installed should he have reported to the superintendent that it was so, not on assumption. If the cap had been checked properly, then the leak may have been prevented altogether.

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Section 2: Practise Competently

Section 2.1(b) - Act in a careful and diligent manner

              2.3(a) - Practice in accordance with legal and statutory requirements,   and with the commonly accepted standards of the day.

Section 3.3(c) - Communicate honestly and effectively, taking into account the reliance of others on engineering expertise.

Section 4: Promote sustainability 

In regards to the environmental impacts, some of these criteria are not met. For example; was the adequacy of the response enough? What about planning ahead and preparations for an accident?

Initial reportings suggest that the magnitude of the oil spill was much larger than PTTEP had announced. PTTEP also did not have an Oil Spill Contingency Plan in place until after it had already began drilling operations at the Montara platform,which is a part of the environmental approval (PerthNow).

PTTEP spent over $5million on the environmental cleanup. The initial response being to spray chemical dispersant on areas of the slick, which increases dissolved hydrocarbons in the water column. It is worth mentioning that PTTEP have avoided other ethical issues by taking responsibility and ownership of their actions.