An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters, but spills may also occur on land. Oil spills may be due to releases of crude oil from tankers, offshore platforms, drilling rigs and wells, as well as spills of refined petroleum products and their by-products, heavier fuels used by large ships such as bunker fuel, or the spill of any oily refuse or waste oil.
Amoco Cadiz was a VLCC owned by Amoco Transport Corp and transporting crude oil for Shell Oil. Operating under the Liberian flag, she ran aground on 16 March 1978 on Portsall Rocks, 2 km (1.2 mi) from the coast of Brittany, France. Ultimately she split in three and sank, resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date.
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.
Corexit is a product line of oil dispersants used during oil spill response operations. It is produced by Nalco Holding Company, an indirect subsidiary of Ecolab. Corexit was originally developed by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Corexit is typically applied by aerial spraying or spraying from ships directly onto an oil slick. On contact with the dispersant, oil that would otherwise float on the surface of the water is emulsified into tiny droplets and sinks or remains suspended in the water. In theory this allows the oil to be more rapidly degraded by bacteria (bioremediation) and prevents it from accumulating on beaches and in marshes.
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, valued at some $86.7 million (2010). By way of comparison, 4 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 Oswego-Guardian–Texanita collision was a maritime accident between two supertankers near Stilbaai, South Africa on 21 August 1972. The Texanita exploded and sank with the loss of 47 men, while a further life was lost on the Oswego Guardian. The accident was a catalyst for change to marine traffic separation procedures as well as oil tanker inerting.
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 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.
Port Stanvac is a former port and oil refinery in the suburb of Lonsdale south of Adelaide city centre in South Australia. It was operated by ExxonMobil between 1963 and 2003. Since its closure, the port and adjoining land-based refinery site have been decommissioned.
The Rayong oil spill occurred on July 27, 2013, in the Gulf of Thailand, off the coast of Ko Samet and Map Ta Phut in Rayong Province.
On May 1, 2010, a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom, Nigeria, spilled more than a million gallons into the delta and contributed to the major environmental issues in the Niger Delta. The spill had occurred at an Exxon platform some 20–25 miles (32–40 km) offshore which feeds the Qua Iboe oil export terminal. Exxon Mobil declared force majeure on Qua Iboe oil shipments due to the pipeline damage. The leakage in the Qua Iboe oil field discharged about 232 barrels of crude into the Atlantic Ocean contaminating the waters and coastal settlements in the predominantly fishing communities along Akwa Ibom and Cross River.
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 Port Bonython oil spill occurred on 30 August 1992, when the fuel tank of the tanker Era was pierced by the bow of the tugboat Turmoil during berthing operations in upper Spencer Gulf, South Australia. Wind and swell were high and 296 tonnes of bunker fuel were released into Spencer Gulf. The incident resulted in 500 oiled birds and damage to 15 km of mangrove and seagrass habitat south-west of Port Pirie.
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.
MVABT Summer was an oil tanker which was built at the South Korean shipbuilding yard of Ulsan and launched in 1974. The vessel was 344 meters in length and almost 54 meters in breadth. While under a Liberian flag, fully laden with Iranian crude and en route to Rotterdam, she sank 700 nautical miles off the Angolan coast. An unexplained explosion occurred on May 28, 1991, and the ship and its cargo began to burn. Five of the crew of thirty-two were killed in the incident, four of whom were initially reported as missing. The following day, a slick 32 kilometres (20 mi) long and 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) wide began to form. The ship continued to burn for three days before sinking on June 1. The vessel's 260,000 tonne cargo of oil was lost, leaving a visible slick on the ocean surface of approximately eighty square miles. Attempts to locate the wreck following the incident proved unsuccessful.
Sanchi was the final name of a 2008-built Panamanian-flagged Suezmax crude oil tanker that was operated by the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) under a variety of ship registries and names. On January 6, 2018, it collided with a cargo ship, CF Crystal in the East China Sea and caught fire with 32 deaths or missing and 130,000 tons of condensate spilled. After drifting for eight days and several explosions Sanchi sank, causing extensive pollution.
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.
