MVSelendang Ayu, IMO number: 9145528, was a Malaysian-registered Panamax bulk cargo ship chartered by the IMC Group. It ran aground off Unalaska Island in western Alaska's Aleutian Islands on 8 December 2004 after its engine failed. Six crew members died when a rescue helicopter was engulfed by a breaking wave; the ship broke in two, resulting in a large oil spill.
A tanker is a ship designed to transport or store liquids or gases in bulk. Major types of tankship include the oil tanker, the chemical tanker, cargo ships, and a gas carrier. Tankers also carry commodities such as vegetable oils, molasses and wine. In the United States Navy and Military Sealift Command, a tanker used to refuel other ships is called an oiler but many other navies use the terms tanker and replenishment tanker. Tankers were first developed in the late 19th century as iron and steel hulls and pumping systems were developed. As of 2005, there were just over 4,000 tankers and supertankers 10,000 LT DWT or greater operating worldwide.
SS Atlantic Empress was a Greek oil tanker that in 1979 collided with the oil tanker Aegean Captain in the Caribbean, and eventually sank, having created the fifth largest oil spill on record and the largest ship-based spill having spilled 287,000 metric tonnes of crude oil into the Caribbean Sea. It was built at the Odense Staalskibsværft shipyard in Odense, Denmark, and launched on 16 February 1974.
MV Braer was an oil tanker which ran aground during a storm off Shetland, Scotland, in January 1993, and nearly a week later broke up during the most intense extratropical cyclone on record for the northern Atlantic Ocean, the Braer Storm of January 1993.
The Aegean Sea tanker oil spill was a spill that occurred on 3 December 1992 when the double-bottomed Greek-flagged oil tanker, Aegean Sea, en route to the Repsol refinery in A Coruña, Spain, suffered an accident off the Galician coast. The ship had successfully passed all required tests and revisions. The accident occurred during extreme weather conditions and affected the Galician coast resulting in ecosystem damage, as well as damage to the fishing and tourist industries in A Coruña.
The MV Sea Empress was a single-hull Suezmax oil tanker that ran aground at the entrance to the Milford Haven harbour on the southwest coast of Wales in February 1996. The ensuing oil spill, Britain's third largest oil spillage and the 12th largest in the world at the time, devastated a considerable area of local coastline and killed many birds, and continued to affect the Pembrokeshire coast for years afterwards.
MT Haven, formerly Amoco Milford Haven, was a VLCC, leased to Troodos Shipping. In 1991, while loaded with 144,000 tonnes of crude oil, the ship exploded, caught fire and sank off the coast of Genoa, Italy, killing six Cypriot crew and flooding the Mediterranean with up to 50,000 tonnes of crude oil. It broke in two and sank after burning for three days.
The Seven Stones reef is a rocky reef nearly 15 miles (24 km) west of Land's End, Cornwall and 7 miles (11 km) east-northeast of the Isles of Scilly. The reef consists of two groups of rocks and is nearly 2 miles (3.2 km) long and 1 mile (1.6 km) in breadth. They rise out of deep water and are a navigational hazard for shipping with 71 named wrecks and an estimated 200 shipwrecks overall. The most infamous is the Torrey Canyon in 1967, which was at that time the world's costliest shipping disaster and, to date, still the worst oil spill on the coast of the United Kingdom.
SS Georgia was an oil tanker that was built in the United States in 1908 as Texas and spent most of her career in the United States Merchant Marine. In 1917 she was renamed Georgia. In 1927 she was transferred to Dutch ownership, and shortly thereafter ran aground and was lost on Haisborough Sands off the coast of Norfolk, England.
MT Independența ("Independence") was a large Romanian crude oil carrier. She collided in 1979 with a Greek freighter at the southern entrance of Bosphorus, Turkey, and exploded. She caught fire and grounded. Almost all of the tanker's crew members died. The wreck of the Independența burned for weeks, causing heavy air and sea pollution in the Istanbul area and the Sea of Marmara.
Ploudalmézeau is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France.
MV Kowloon Bridge was a Bridge-class ore-bulk-oil combination carrier built by Swan Hunter in 1973. She sank off the coast of the Republic of Ireland in December 1986.
Katina P was a Greek oil tanker carrying 72,000 tonnes of oil which sank off the Mozambique coast on 26 April 1992.
The Sea Empress oil spill occurred at the entrance to the Milford Haven Waterway in Pembrokeshire, Wales on 15th February 1996. The Sea Empress was en route to the Texaco oil refinery near Pembroke when she became grounded on mid-channel rocks at St. Ann's Head. Over the course of a week, she spilt 72,000 tons of crude oil into the sea. The spill occurred within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park – one of Europe's most important and sensitive wildlife and marine conservation areas. It was Britain's third largest oil spillage and the twelfth largest in the world at the time.
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 crewed by Taiwanese sailors.
The Amoco Cadiz oil spill took place on 16 March 1978, when the oil tanker Amoco Cadiz, owned by the American petroleum company Amoco, ran aground on Portsall Rocks, 2 km (1.2 mi) from the coast of Brittany, France. The vessel ultimately split in three and sank. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that the total oil spill amounted to 220,880 tonnes of oil which amounts to over 58 million gallons or 256.2 million litres, making it the largest oil spill of its kind at the time.
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 up to that point and 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.
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.
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