Oil Spills and Disasters
The following list includes major oil spills since 1967. The
circumstances surrounding the spill, amount of oil spilled, and the
attendant environmental damage is also given.
- 1967
- March 18, Cornwall, Eng.: Torrey Canyon
ran aground, spilling 38 million gallons of crude oil off the Scilly
Islands.
- 1976
- Dec. 15, Buzzards Bay, Mass.: Argo Merchant
ran aground and broke apart southeast of Nantucket Island, spilling
its entire cargo of 7.7 million gallons of fuel oil.
- 1977
- April, North Sea: blowout of well in Ekofisk
oil field leaked 81 million gallons.
- 1978
- March 16, off Portsall, France: wrecked
supertanker Amoco Cadiz spilled 68 million gallons, causing
widespread environmental damage over 100 mi of Brittany coast.
- 1979
- June 3, Gulf of Mexico: exploratory oil well
Ixtoc 1 blew out, spilling an estimated 140 million gallons of crude
oil into the open sea. Although it is one of the largest known oil
spills, it had a low environmental impact.
- July 19, Tobago: the Atlantic Empress
and the Aegean Captain collided, spilling 46 million gallons
of crude. While being towed, the Atlantic Empress spilled an
additional 41 million gallons off Barbados on Aug. 2.
- 1980
- March 30, Stavanger, Norway: floating hotel in
North Sea collapsed, killing 123 oil workers.
- 1983
- Feb. 4, Persian Gulf, Iran: Nowruz Field
platform spilled 80 million gallons of oil.
- Aug. 6, Cape Town, South Africa: the Spanish
tanker Castillo de Bellver caught fire, spilling 78 million
gallons of oil off the coast.
- 1988
- July 6, North Sea off Scotland: 166 workers
killed in explosion and fire on Occidental Petroleum's Piper
Alpha rig in North Sea; 64 survivors. It is the world's worst
offshore oil disaster.
- Nov. 10, Saint John's, Newfoundland: Odyssey
spilled 43 million gallons of oil.
- 1989
- March 24, Prince William Sound, Alaska: tanker
Exxon Valdez hit an undersea reef and spilled 10 million–plus
gallons of oil into the water, causing the worst oil spill in U.S.
history.
- Dec. 19, off Las Palmas, the Canary Islands:
explosion in Iranian supertanker, the Kharg-5, caused 19
million gallons of crude oil to spill into Atlantic Ocean about 400
mi north of Las Palmas, forming a 100-square-mile oil slick.
- 1990
- June 8, off Galveston, Tex.: Mega Borg
released 5.1 million gallons of oil some 60 nautical miles
south-southeast of Galveston as a result of an explosion and
subsequent fire in the pump room.
- 1991
- Jan. 23–27, southern Kuwait: during the Persian
Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons of
crude oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 mi off Kuwait. Spill
had little military significance. On Jan. 27, U.S. warplanes bombed
pipe systems to stop the flow of oil.
- April 11, Genoa, Italy: Haven spilled 42
million gallons of oil in Genoa port.
- May 28, Angola: ABT Summer exploded and
leaked 15–78 million gallons of oil off the coast of Angola. It's
not clear how much sank or burned.
- 1992
- March 2, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan: 88 million
gallons of oil spilled from an oil well.
- 1993
- Aug. 10, Tampa Bay, Fla.: three ships collided,
the barge Bouchard B155, the freighter Balsa 37, and
the barge Ocean 255. The Bouchard spilled an estimated
336,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Tampa Bay.
- 1994
- Sept. 8, Russia: dam built to contain oil burst
and spilled oil into Kolva River tributary. U.S. Energy Department
estimated spill at 2 million barrels. Russian state-owned oil
company claimed spill was only 102,000 barrels.
- 1996
- Feb. 15, off Welsh coast: supertanker Sea
Empress ran aground at port of Milford Haven, Wales, spewed out
70,000 tons of crude oil, and created a 25-mile slick.
- 1999
- Dec. 12, French Atlantic coast:
Maltese-registered tanker Erika broke apart and sank off
Britanny, spilling 3 million gallons of heavy oil into the sea.
- 2000
- Jan. 18, off Rio de Janeiro: ruptured pipeline
owned by government oil company, Petrobras, spewed 343,200 gallons
of heavy oil into Guanabara Bay.
- Nov. 28, Mississippi River south of New Orleans:
oil tanker Westchester lost power and ran aground near Port
Sulphur, La., dumping 567,000 gallons of crude oil into lower
Mississippi. Spill was largest in U.S. waters since Exxon Valdez
disaster in March 1989.
- 2002
- Nov. 13, Spain: Prestige suffered a
damaged hull and was towed to sea and sank. Much of the 20 million
gallons of oil remains underwater.
- 2003
- July 28, Pakistan: The Tasman Spirit, a
tanker, ran aground near the Karachi port, and eventually cracked
into two pieces. One of its four oil tanks burst open, leaking
28,000 tons of crude oil into the sea.
- 2004
- Dec. 7, Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska: A
major storm pushed the M/V Selendang Ayu up onto a rocky
shore, breaking it in two. 337,000 gallons of oil were released,
most of which was driven onto the shoreline of Makushin and Skan
Bays.
- 2005
- Aug.-Sept., New Orleans, Louisiana: The Coast
Guard estimated that more than 7 million gallons of oil were spilled
during Hurricane Katrina from various sources, including pipelines,
storage tanks and industrial plants.
- 2006
- June 19, Calcasieu River, Louisiana: An
estimated 71,000 barrels of waste oil were released from a tank at
the CITGO Refinery on the Calcasieu River during a violent rain
storm.
- July 15, Beirut, Lebanon: The Israeli navy
bombs the Jieh coast power station, and between three million and
ten million gallons of oil leaks into the sea, affecting nearly 100
miles of coastline. A coastal blockade, a result of the war, greatly
hampers outside clean-up efforts.
- August 11th, Guimaras island, The Philippines:
A tanker carrying 530,000 gallons of oil sinks off the coast of the
Philippines, putting the country's fishing and tourism industries at
great risk. The ship sinks in deep water, making it virtually
unrecoverable, and it continues to emit oil into the ocean as other
nations are called in to assist in the massive clean-up effort.
- 2007
- December 7, South Korea: Oil spill causes
environmental disaster, destroying beaches, coating birds and
oysters with oil, and driving away tourists with its stench. The
Hebei Spirit collides with a steel wire connecting a tug boat
and barge five miles off South Korea's west coast, spilling 2.8
million gallons of crude oil. Seven thousand people are trying to
clean up 12 miles of oil-coated coast.
- 2008
- July 25, New Orleans, Louisiana: A 61-foot
barge, carrying 419,000 gallons of heavy fuel, collides with a
600-foot tanker ship in the Mississippi River near New Orleans.
Hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel leak from the barge,
causing a halt to all river traffic while cleanup efforts commence
to limit the environmental fallout on local wildlife.
- 2009
- March 11, Queensland, Australia: During Cyclone
Hamish, unsecured cargo aboard the container ship MV Pacific
Adventurer came loose on deck and caused the release of 52,000
gallons of heavy fuel and 620 tons of ammonium nitrate, a
fertilizer, into the Coral Sea. About 60 km of the Sunshine Coast
was covered in oil, prompting the closure of half the area's
beaches.
- 2010
- Jan. 23, Port Arthur, Texas: The oil tanker
Eagle Otome and a barge collide in the Sabine-Neches Waterway,
causing the release of about 462,000 gallons of crude oil.
Environmental damage was minimal as about 46,000 gallons were
recovered and 175,000 gallons were dispersed or evaporated,
according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
- April 24, Gulf of Mexico: The Deepwater
Horizon, a semi-submersible drilling rig, sank on April 22,
after an April 20th explosion on the vessel. Eleven people died in
the blast. When the rig sank, the riser—the 5,000-foot-long pipe
that connects the wellhead to the rig—became detached and began
leaking oil. In addition, U.S. Coast Guard investigators discovered
a leak in the wellhead itself. As much as 60,000 barrels of oil per
day were leaking into the water, threatening wildlife along the
Louisiana Coast. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
declared it a "spill of national significance." BP (British
Petroleum), which leased the Deepwater Horizon, is
responsible for the cleanup, but the U.S. Navy supplied the company
with resources to help contain the slick. Oil reached the Louisiana
shore on April 30, affected about 125 miles of coast. By early June,
oil had also reached Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. It is the
largest oil spill in U.S. history.
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