Ethics in the business of petroleum exploration

This paper is intended to emphasize the importance of high standards of conduct to individuals and companies in the business of petroleum exploration. The questions to be addressed include: What are ethics and how do they relate to professionalism? What are the bases for ethical behavior?; and What are some typical ethical issues in the exploration business? Ethics comprise a set of standards that control and measure relationships between individuals and companies in social and business interactions. These standards apply to questions of whether folks have done the moral right by the other person, whatever the nature of their interaction might be. The means of granting rights to others are included in the mores of society. These are the unwritten, yet valid, rules that dictate, for example, how bargaining is conducted between buyer and seller or how properly to greet people of different social stature. Mores constitute the protocol and etiquette of personal and business interaction