BP employees in Ohio feel weight of Gulf spill

Joe Turner, gas station owner in Centerville, is getting out of the gasoline business to concentrate on his auto-repair business. Staff photo by Ty Greenlees

Ty Greenlees/Staff Photographer Joe Turner, gas station owner in Centerville, is getting out of the gasoline business to concentrate on his auto-repair business. Staff photo by Ty Greenlees

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By Thomas Gnau, Staff Writer Updated 9:07 PM Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is 900 miles away, but has direct ramifications for BP employees and customers here in Ohio.

“Because you are a BP employee, regardless of what position you have, it definitely weighs on you,” said Mary Caprella, government and public affairs director for BP-Husky Refining LLC, an oil refinery owned by BP and Husky Energy in the Toledo area. “You feel badly about what has occurred and you watch the incident.”

The Oregon, Ohio, refinery employs 600 BP workers and another 600 full-time contractors.

Jack Shaner, director of legislative & public affairs for the Ohio Environmental Council, rejects the idea that the spill has nothing to do with Ohio.

“You turn the key to the car, you’re part of the problem, and you’re part of the solution,” Shaner said. “We all consume petroleum, whether we drive a car or drink Coke from a bottle.”

Riad Ajami follows the oil industry as a professor of international business and strategy at Wright State University. He believes BP can survive, albeit in greatly diminished form.

In the less than two months since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank, BP’s market capitalization — the sum value of its outstanding shares — has dropped 40 percent, and a sizeable number of lawsuits have been filed or threatened, Ajami noted.

In his view, BP has not managed the situation well. He contends BP should demonstrate it understands its responsibility not just to shareholders but to outside “stakeholders” — all those affected by its actions.

A spokesman for BP America could not be reached for comment. Tony Hayward, BP chief executive, has said the company will be in the Gulf for a long time working to deal with the leak and its consequences.

Ajami also said independent owners of BP service stations should push the company to do right, and BP should share with those stations resources to “carry the ball forward on behalf of British Petroleum.”

BP in the U.S.

BP has about 9,700 BP-branded stations in the United States. Most of those were sold to independent ownership in 2007. The company could not break down how many of those are in Ohio.

The company’s BP-Husky refinery in Oregon, Ohio is one of its five major refineries in the U.S. The Ohio refinery has 600 employees with 600 full-time contractors.

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