The Strait of Hormuz is a strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world's most strategically important choke points. On the north coast lies Iran, and on the south coast lies the Musandam peninsula, shared by the United Arab Emirates and the Musandam Governorate, an exclave of Oman. The strait is about 90 nautical miles (167 km) long, with a width varying from about 52 nmi (96 km) to 21 nmi (39 km).
Malacca Strait is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi long and from 40 to 155 mi wide, located between the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest and the Malay Peninsula to the northeast, connecting the Andaman Sea with the Singapore Strait and the South China Sea. As the main shipping channel between the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, it is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world. It is named after the Phyllanthus emblica, which known by the locals as the Malaka tree, grown in coastal regions alongside the strait.
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.
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.
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.
On August 11, 2006, an oil spill occurred in Panay Gulf when the oil tanker, MT Solar 1, sank off the coasts of Guimaras and Negros in the Philippines, causing what is considered to be the worst oil spill in the country's history.
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.
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries. Product tankers, generally much smaller, are designed to move refined products from refineries to points near consuming markets.
Vector was a Philippine oil tanker that collided with the passenger ferry Doña Paz on December 20, 1987 in the Tablas Strait, Philippines, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 4,386 passengers and crew from the two ships. The incident is considered the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history.
The 2010 Port Arthur oil spill was the result of a collision between two vessels in the Sabine-Neches Waterway at Port Arthur, Texas on January 23, 2010. The two vessels were the oil tanker Eagle Otome and a barge being pushed by the towboat Dixie Vengeance.
The Sea Empress oil spill occurred at the entrance to the Milford Haven Waterway in Pembrokeshire, Wales on 16 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.
MV Waily was a Saint Vincent and the Grenadines-flagged bulk carrier owned by Treasure Marine Ltd. The vessel was involved in a collision with the Malaysian-flagged oil tanker MT Bunga Kelana 3 on 25 May 2010 in the Singapore Strait that caused a release of 2,000 tonnes of crude oil.
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 and led to significant changes in maritime law and oil spill responses.
The T1 tanker or T1 are a class of sea worthy small tanker ships used to transport fuel oil before and during World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War. The T1 tanker classification is still in use today. T1 tankers are about 200 to 250 feet in length and are able to sustain a top speed of about 12 knots. The hull designation AO is used by the US Navy to denote the ship is a T1 oil tanker and AOG that the T1 is a gasoline tanker. The small size allows the T1 to enter just about any sea port or to anchor around a small island, this was very useful during the Pacific War. The T1 tanker can carry about 48,000 to 280,000 bbls. Some T1 tankers were used to transport goods other than oil, a few were used for black oil-crude oil, diesel, chemicals and rarely bulk cargo like grain. T1 tankers are also called liquid cargo carriers. The T1 tanker has about a 6,000 to 35,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT) of cargo. The small size also gives the ships short turn around time for repair, cleaning, loading and unloading. A T1 tanker carrying dirty cargo, like crude oil needs a few weeks of labor to clean before carrying clean cargo. Most T1 ships during World War II were named after major oil fields.
At 5:24 a.m. on 21 August 2017, USS John S. McCain, a United States Navy warship, was involved in a collision with the Liberian-flagged tanker Alnic MC off the coast of Singapore and Malaysia, east of the Strait of Malacca. According to a U.S. Navy press release, the breach "resulted in flooding to nearby compartments, including crew berthing, machinery, and communications rooms." Ten US Navy sailors died as a result of the crash, which prompted the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore to start a multi-agency search-and-rescue (SAR) effort as the agency responsible for coordinating SAR operations within Singapore's Maritime Search and Rescue Region (MSRR). The Singapore Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) also launched a marine safety investigation following the collision in accordance with the International Maritime Organisation's Casualty Investigation Code in Singapore's capacity as a coastal state, and published its final report on 8 March 2018. The U.S. Navy announced on 24 August 2017 that it had suspended search-and-rescue efforts for survivors in the open sea to focus on the recovery of the remains of the missing sailors still inside the flooded compartments of the ship. By 27 August, U.S. Navy and United States Marine Corps divers had recovered the remains of all ten sailors. On 12 September 2017, the United States' chargé d'affaires Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath expressed thanks for Singapore's support during the SAR operations. The McCain returned to service in June 2020.
MV Thorco Cloud was a general cargo ship owned by Thorco Projects that sank in the Singapore Strait in December 2015 after a collision with the chemical tanker MV Stolt Commitment. The collision resulted in six casualties from a total crew of 12. The collision caused the ship to split into two parts, which sank approximately 1.85 kilometres (1.15 mi) apart at a depth of 70 metres (230 ft) in the traffic separation scheme of the Singapore Strait, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. The wreck was removed in 2019.
Malaysia, Port Kelang