by Leigh Goessl

Created on: June 21, 2010   Last Updated: June 25, 2010

Ever since the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, the oil spill situation has gotten significantly worse in the Gulf of Mexico. Disastrous. People are angry, and rightfully so. 

As a result many individuals are taking action because two months later the situation is still out of control with no end in sight.

The solution they've developed has emerged in the form of a boycott against BP.

This Boycott BP campaign has materialized and continues to expand each passing day. It includes everyday motorists, celebrities and their gas consuming tour busses and even a Boycott BP Facebook page. The Facebook page, as of June 20, 2010, has almost 673,000 fans and steadily rising.

Instead of filling up at the tank of their local BP station, consumers across the United States are joining together in agreement to pass these stations by and patronize other gas stations and convenience shops instead. Others are arranging protests and arriving with picket signs in front of their local BP stations.

While on the surface a boycott of BP sounds like a great idea since the company screwed up in a big way, and refusing to spend money to help bulk up BP's financial coffers sends a pretty direct and strong message.  But is it the right one?

A problem with this is that boycotting local BP may not necessarily hurt the oil giant. Unfortunately what could happen is many small business owners instead would be the ones being hurt by the boycott.

While it is true some of these franchisees must purchase BP gas according to their contract, apparently this is not the case across the board and in some instances BP branded stations allegedly purchase their gas through third party sellers, or it could be the gas purchasing portion of a contract may have expired if the owner has been in business a long time.

In addition many other gas stations not carrying the BP name on their operations do purchase their fuel from BP. So in essence unless all gas stations are boycotted, no one has any true idea what oil corporation the gas they are purchasing originated from. The Consumerist states "Your corner BP station is mainly just a brand, a licensed franchise owned by a local businessman. The fuel that comes out of the pumps might have been bought from a totally different company. Only right before it gets put on the truck for delivery is the special BP sauce, additives, added."

According to WISH-TV 24 Hour News 8 in Indiana, "BP doesn't actually own any of the 11,000 stations across

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