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The Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound, spilling its cargo of crude oil into the sea. On 24 March 1989, while owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company, captained by Joseph Hazelwood and First Mate James Kunkel, and bound for Long Beach, California, the vessel ran aground on the Bligh Reef, resulting in the second largest oil spill in United States history. The size of the spill is estimated to have been 40,900 to 120,000 m3. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil spill was listed as the 54th-largest spill in history.
MV Argo Merchant was a Liberian-flagged oil tanker built by Howaldtswerke in Hamburg, Germany, in 1953, most noted for running aground and subsequently sinking southeast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, causing one of the largest marine oil spills in history. Throughout the vessel's troubled past, she was involved in more than a dozen major shipping incidents including two other groundings; once in Indonesia while named Permina Samudra III, and again in Sicily while named Vari; and a collision in Japan.
The Prestige oil spill occurred off the coast of Galicia, Spain in November 2002, caused by the sinking of the 26-year-old, structurally deficient oil tanker MV Prestige, carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. During a storm, it burst a tank on 13 November, and French, Spanish, and Portuguese governments refused to allow the ship to dock. The vessel subsequently sank on 19 November, about 210 kilometres (130 mi) from the coast of Galicia. It is estimated that it spilled 60,000 tonnes or a volume of 67,000 m3 (17.8 million US gal) of heavy fuel oil.
The 2009 southeast Queensland oil spill occurred off the coast of southeast Queensland, Australia on 11 March 2009, when 230 tonnes of fuel oil, 30 tonnes of other fuel and 31 shipping containers containing 620 tonnes of ammonium nitrate spilled into the Coral Sea, north of Moreton Bay during Cyclone Hamish. It happened after unsecured cargo on MV Pacific Adventurer damaged other cargo, causing the spillage. Over the following days, the spill washed ashore along 60 kilometres (37 mi) of coastline encompassing the Sunshine Coast, Moreton Bay, Bribie Island and Moreton Island.
The 2010 Great Barrier Reef oil spill occurred on 3 April 2010, when the Chinese bulk coal carrier, MV Shen Neng 1 ran aground east of Rockhampton in Central Queensland, Australia. The vessel is owned by Shenzhen Energy Transport Co. Ltd.
Jia Yong, formerly MV Shen Neng 1 is a Chinese bulk carrier built in 1993 as Bestore. She was sold in 2007 and renamed Shen Neng 1. In 2010, she ran aground off Great Keppel Island in Queensland, Australia, spilling oil into Great Barrier Reef waters.
Odyssey, which previously went by the name Oriental Phoenix, was an oil tanker in operation from 1971 to November 10, 1988, when an explosion caused it to sink in the North Atlantic off the coast of Canada. The resulting spill remains one of the largest oil spills in world history. The tanker was 700 nautical miles off the coast of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia when it sank and released 132,157 tons of oil into the ocean. By way of comparison, 4.3 times as much oil was spilled by the Odyssey as from the much more famous Exxon Valdez.
The Venpet–Venoil collision was a maritime accident involving sister supertankers; the Liberian-registered Venoil and Venpet, in dense fog off the coast of South Africa on 16 December 1977. The tankers were travelling in opposite directions; the Venoil fully laden with over 250,000 tonnes of crude oil bound for Halifax, Canada, and the Venpet, travelling in ballast, headed for Kharg Island, Iran. The Venoil ploughed into the Venpet, eventually leading to the spilling of approximately 26,600–30,500 tonnes of crude oil. The tankers were sister ships owned and operated by Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Both ships were manned by Taiwanese crews.
The Torrey Canyon oil spill was one of the world's most serious oil spills. The supertanker SS Torrey Canyon ran aground on rocks off the south-west coast of the United Kingdom in 1967, spilling an estimated 25–36 million gallons of crude oil. Attempts to mitigate the damage included the bombing of the wreck by aircraft from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Hundreds of miles of coastline in Britain, France, Guernsey, and Spain were affected by the oil and other substances used to mitigate damage. It was the world's worst oil spill; it remains the worst spill in UK history. It led to significant changes in maritime law and oil spill responses.
The SS Wafra oil spill occurred on 27 February 1971, when SS Wafra, an oil tanker, ran aground while under tow near Cape Agulhas, South Africa. Approximately 200,000 barrels of crude oil were leaked into the ocean. The larger part of the ship was refloated, towed out to sea, and then sunk by the South African Air Force to prevent further oil contamination of the coastline.
MOL Comfort was a 2008-built Bahamian-flagged post-Panamax container ship chartered by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines. The vessel was launched in 2008 as APL Russia and sailed under that name until 2012, when the ship was renamed to MOL Comfort. On 17 June 2013, she broke in two about 200 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen. The aft section sank on 27 June and the bow section, after having been destroyed by fire, on 11 July.
The MV Treasure oil spill occurred on 23 June 2000, when the ship sank six miles off the coast of South Africa while transporting iron ore from China to Brazil. The ship was carrying an estimated 1,300 tons of fuel oil, some of which spilled into the ocean, threatening the African penguin populations living on nearby islands. Cleanup efforts began promptly after the incident with particular attention being paid to salvaging the penguin communities.
The Mega Borg oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico on June 8, 1990, roughly 50 miles off the coast of Texas, when the oil tanker Mega Borg caught on fire and exploded. The cleanup was one of the first practical uses of bioremediation.
The MT Castillo de Bellver oil spill began on 6 August 1983, when the Spanish tanker caught on fire off Saldanha Bay, approximately 70 miles northwest of Cape Town, South Africa. It was carrying 250,000 tonnes of light crude oil, and was traveling through an environmentally sensitive area known for its seabird rookeries and important commercial fishing grounds. The burning vessel was abandoned and broke apart after drifting offshore. Three crew were lost. The stern capsized and sunk and the bow was sunk using explosives. A total of 145,000-170,000 tonnes of oil entered the sea. Onshore impacts were considered negligible as the slick traveled seaward. The only visible impact was the oiling of 1,500 gannets that were on a nearby island.
The MV Apollo Sea was a Chinese-owned, Panamanian-registered bulk carrier which sank near Cape Town in June 1994. Leaking oil from the sunken vessel caused a major environmental disaster which resulted in the death of thousands of seabirds, including endangered African penguins. All of the ship's 36 crew members died in the sinking, which apparently occurred so quickly that no general distress signals were given. The first public indication that the ship had sunk was the appearance of penguins covered with oil. The source of the slick was initially believed to be the wreck of the supertanker Castillo de Bellver, but this theory was disproven and the slick was instead traced to the wreck of the Apollo Sea. The vessel had been loaded with 2,400 tonnes of heavy fuel oil when she left port four hours before she sank. Later it was revealed that an automated distress signal had been sent directly to the owners via satellite from the approximate location of the oil spill, and the owners eventually admitted the loss of the vessel and accepted responsibility for the spill.
The SS Arrow was an oil tanker built by Bethlehem Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Baltimore, Maryland in 1948 as the tanker Olympic Games. Renamed Sea Robin in 1960 and finally Arrow in 1962, the ship was a Liberian-registered tanker owned by the Sun Navigation Company. At 551.2 feet in length and 68.3 feet in width, with a draft of 29.9 feet, she was an enlarged version of the standard American World War II tanker design and one of the oldest tankers in the fleet of Aristotle Onassis. The Arrow ran aground and spilled its load of oil into Chedabucto Bay on February 4, 1970. This remains the most significant oil spill off Canada’s East Coast, with some 10,000 tonnes. Only the MV Kurdistan accident has come close, spilling about 6,000 tons of oil after breaking apart in the Cabot Strait on March 15, 1979.
The Sanchioil tanker collision occurred on 6 January 2018 when the Panamanian-flagged, Iranian-owned tanker Sanchi, with a full natural-gas condensate cargo of 136,000 tonnes, sailing from Iran to South Korea, collided with the Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship CF Crystal 160 nautical miles (300 km) off Shanghai, China. Sanchi caught fire shortly after the collision; after burning and drifting for over a week, it sank on 14 January.
MT New Diamond is a very large crude carrier. On 3 September 2020, the ship caught fire off the western coast of Sri Lanka, resulting in the death of a Filipino crew member. After burning intermittently for almost a week, the fire was reported to be extinguished by 11 September. In July 2021 the ship was beached at Gadani Ship Breaking Yard.
References
- 1 2 "ABT Summer". Cedre. 2010-06-16. Retrieved 2014-12-06.
- ↑ "Worst Oil Spills: The ABT Summer Oil Spill Incident". Marine Insight. 2012-10-05. Retrieved 2014-12-06.
- ↑ "ABT SUMMER, off Angola, 1991". ITOPF. Archived from the original on 2014-12-08. Retrieved 2014-12-06.
- ↑ "ABT Summer". OilPollutionLiability.com. Archived from the original on 2014-11-10. Retrieved 2014-12-06.