Biggest Scandals in the History of the Oil and Gas Industry

Most oil and gas industry employees go to their place of employment, do an honest day’s work, and return to their families without incident. There are no dramas, stresses, or incidents.

However, that’s not everyone’s experience. Throughout the years, many oil and gas corporations have been caught up in significant scandals affecting their reputation, profits, and employees’ livelihoods. Of those scandals, these are among the most significant:

Operation Car Wash

Most leading criminal law firms like Purser Law are familiar with Operation Car Wash. This was the name of a criminal investigation involving the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras.

Petrobras was accused of bribing politicians and political parties in Brazil in 2014. They allegedly then tried to conceal payments from investors and regulatory agencies that had been made to get contracts at inflated prices. These payments allegedly totaled around $2.1 billion, making it one of the largest foreign bribery cases in history.

BP Oil Spill

Most oil and gas corporations know how important it is to avoid oil spills in the ocean. After all, they can have catastrophic impacts on marine life. That’s perhaps why many corporations have focused their time and effort on innovations in oil spill cleanup technology.

However, such big investments in this tech may have also come out of the desire to avoid another significant scandal like the BP Oil Spill of 2010. Also known as the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, it involved a drilling rig exploding offshore, killing 11 men and injuring several more. The oil spill from that explosion is believed to be the largest in history, with nearly five million barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.

A US presidential commission report on the oil spill found that most mistakes and oversights at the Horizon oil rig were traced back to one main failure: a failure of management.

Nigeria Lawsuit Against Shell and Eni

Many oil and gas industry professionals were in shock when it was announced in 2018 that Nigeria was filing a $1.092 billion lawsuit against Eni and Shell. They alleged that these oil companies engaged in bribery and conspiracy against Nigeria. They also claimed that the companies diverged billions of dollars of potential revenue away from Nigeria.

While it took several years for the case to reach a conclusion, both Eni and Shell were finally acquitted in the case in 2022. General prosecutor Celestina Gravina filed a waiver, saying the case had no grounds.

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

The BP Oil Spill isn’t the only one many people remember. The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill of 1989 is also not one to forget. It’s described as one of the most infamous environmental disasters of all time, with an oil tanker spilling over 11 million gallons of oil into the Prince William Sound of Alaska. To this day, it remains the second-largest spill in United States waters.

The oil from the spill affected 1,300 miles of coastline and resulted in the deaths of up to 250,000 seabirds and thousands of sea otters, harbor seals, bald eagles, orcas, salmon, and herring.

The oil and gas industry keeps many people employed and is leading the way regarding innovation. However, it’s not without its dark past. These scandals are just a few of the many that have happened in recent years.