An assessment and critique of crisis management in the oil and gas industry in ensuring company continuity

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the level of preparation and capability of oil and gas companies to meet the emergent crisis situations in their operating environments. The BP gulf oil spill and the earlier Exxon Valdez incident pointed out the dangers that attend the operations of the exploration and extraction aspect of their operations, and numerous concerns revolve around the transportation, distribution, and storage of fossil fuels that could pose environmental threats such as oil spills and carbon dioxide emissions. The researcher interviewed 30 upper and middle managers from the oil and gas industry, distributed among 10 companies from the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors of the industry. They were asked open-ended questions formulated pursuant to the Issue and Crisis Management Relational Model developed by Jaques (2007), which touched on crisis preparedness, crisis prevention, crisis event management, and post-crisis management. The study employed qualitative data analysis to scrutinize the responses of the participants to determine the state of crisis management of the company. The findings indicate substantial differences between the crisis management styles of companies situated in the downstream sectors vis-à-vis that of companies in the upstream sector, with upstream companies being more systematic and organized, and being concerned with a wider range of crisis situations. The level of crisis preparedness and prevention is more seriously considered by large upstream companies.