1967 - England, 38 Million Gallons Spilled
March 18: Supertanker Torrey Canyon struck Pollard's Rock on Seven Stones reef between the Cornish mainland and the Scilly Isles. It ran aground, spilling its cargo which affected hundreds of miles of coastline in the UK, France, Guernsey, and Spain. Mitigation efforts by the Cornwall fire brigade and attending Royal Navy included the use of detergents to disperse the oil. When the ship started to break-up it was decided to set the oil on fire to to prevent the disaster worsening.
1972 - Oman, 35.3 Million Gallons Spilled
December 19: The South Korean supertanker, Sea Star, collided with Brazilian tanker the Horta Barbosa off the coast of Oman. The vessel caught fire and the crews abandoned ship. Although the Horta Barbosa fire was extinguished in a day, the Sea Star sank into the Gulf on December 24 following several explosions.
1976 - USA, 7.7 Million Gallons Spilled
December 15: M/V Argo Merchant had a history of running aground. That day, it ran ashore on middle rup shoal, about 29 nautical miles southwest of Nantucket island in Buzzards Bay, Massachussetts. Six days later, M/V Argo Merchant broke apart emptying its cargo into the sea. High winds blew the slick away from shore sparing coastal fisheries and beaches.
1977 - Norway, 81 Million Gallons Spilled
April 24: An incorrectly installed downhole safety valve in the Ekofisk Bravo platform, resulted in the largest oil spill blowout in the North Sea to date.
1978 - France, 69 Million Gallons Spilled
March 16: The massive Amoco Cadiz was caught in a winter storm in Portstall damaging the ship's rudder. Several ships responded to their distress call, but none were able to prevent the ship from running aground. The following day the super tanker broke in half sending its contents into the English Channel. The French later sunk the ship.
1979 - Mexico, 140 Million Gallons Spilled
June 3: This spill did not involve a tanker, but rather the offshore oil well Pemex. A state owned Mexican petroleum company was drilling a well in the Bay of Campeche off Ciudad del Carmen when a blowout occured. The oil ignited causing the drilling platform to collapse. Oil began gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 10,000 to 30,000 barrels a day for almost an entire year before workers were able to cap it.
1979 - Trinidad & Tobago, 90 Million Gallons Spilled
July 19: The Greek Oil tanker the Atlantic Empress was caught in a tropical storm off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago when it collided with the Aegean Captain. The damaged ship started losing oil and continued to leak while being towed. On August 3, the tanker finally sank in deep water where the remaining cargo solidified.
1980 - Norway, 123 Oil Workers Killed
March 30: Alexander L. Kielland was a Norwegian semi-submersible drilling rig turned flotel, housing 300 workers. It capsized killing 123 people. Investigative reports concluded that the facility overturned due to mechanical fatigue. Fatigue cracks on the D-6 bracing that connected the collapsed D-leg to the rest of the rig were a major factor in this accident. Cold cracks in the welds, increased stress concentrations due to a weakened flange plate, a poor weld profile, and cyclical stresses (which would be common in the North Sea) collectively played a role in the rig's collapse. The design was flawed owing to the absence of structural redundancies.
1983 - Iran, 80 Million Gallons Spilled
February 10: The Nowruz Oil Field spill occurred when a tanker collided with an oil platform. The weakened platform was closed, and collapsed upon impact, spewing oil into the Persian Gulf. The ongoing Iran, Iraq war prevented the leak from being capped immediately.
1983 - South Africa, 170,000 Tons Spilled
August 6: The Castillo de Bellver in Saldanha Bay caught fire 70 miles north west of Cape Town, and drifted in the open sea until it broke in two 25 miles off the coast. The ship’s stern sank and its cargo entered the sea. The bow section was towed and deliberately sunk.
1983 - Russia, 84 Million Gallons Spilled
August 6: A poorly maintained pipe in the Kolva River leaked for eight months before being contained by a dike. However, sudden cold temperatures caused the dike to collapse and millions of gallons of accumulated oil were released across 170 acres of streams, fragile bogs and marshland.
1988 - Scotland, 166 Workers Killed
July 6: 166 Workers on Occidental Petroleum's Alpha Piper Rig in the North Sea were killed. The platform was originally designed as an oil platform and later converted to gas production. For safety reasons the modules had been organized with the most dangerous operations located away from personnel areas. The conversion from oil to gas broke this safety concept and located sensitive areas such as the gas compression facility next to the control room. This apparently played a key role in the accident. The world's worst offshore oil disaster in terms of human lives had 61 survivors.
1988 - Canada, 40.7 Million Gallons Spilled
November. 10: Loaded with North Sea Brent Crude, oil the tanker was making its way to the Come By Chance Refinery at Come-by-Chance, Newfoundland and Labrador. About 1,000 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, a major North Atlantic storm arose, buffetting the ship with 25-foot waves and 44-mile-per-hour winds. The ship sent out a distress signal and kept heading for shore but an explosion on board caused the ship to break in two 700 nautical miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. As the ship began to sink a fire broke out on its stern causing the oil to catch fire. Hazardous weather conditions prevented the Canadian Coast Guard from immediately reaching the spill. Much of the oil had burned up before the coast guard arrived.
1989 - USA, 100 Million Gallons Spilled
March 24: Heading towards Long Beach California, the Exxon Valdez struck the Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The remote location of the accident, accessible only by helicopter, plane, and boat, made government and industry response efforts difficult and taxing to existing response and recovery plans. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters.
1989 - Canary Islands, 19 Million Gallons Spilled
December 19: An explosion in Iranian supertanker, the Kharg-5, caused a spill into the Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles north of Las Palmas forming a 100-square-mile oil slick.
1990 - USA, 5.1 Million Gallons Spilled
June 8: The Mega Borg oil spill happened as a result of a lightering (unloading or transferring cargo from one ship to another) accident and subsequent explosion in the pump room of the vessel. Estimates suggest the tanker lost as much as 3 million gallons of oil. The U.S. Coast Guard said that only roughly 12,000 gallons remained on the water after much of the oil had burnt or evaporated (75,000 gallons of oil were recovered). There were concerns that the spill could form tar balls on Galveston's beaches, but only a few minor incidents were noted.
1991 - Kuwait, 380 - 520 Million Gallons Spilled
January 19: The worst oil spill in history was an act of war. During the Gulf War, Iraqi forces attempted to prevent American soldiers from landing by opening valves at an offshore oil terminal and dumping oil from tankers. A 4-inch thick oil slick was created that spread across 4,000 square miles of the Persian Gulf.
January 23–27: 240–460 million gallons of crude oil were released into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 miles off of Southern Kuwait. The spill had little military significance. On January 27, U.S. warplanes bombed pipe systems to stop the flow of oil.
1991 - Italy, 45 Million Gallons Spilled
April 11: M/T Haven Tanker exploded and sank off the coast of Genoa, killing six people and leaking its remaining oil into the Mediterranean for 12 years. Supposedly the Haven had been scrapped after being hit by a missile during the Iran-Iraq War, but was subsequently put back in operation. The cause of the explosion was thought to be the ship's poor state of repair.
1991 - Angola, 51 - 81 Million Gallons Spilled
May 28: While en route to Rotterdam from the Gulf Terminal at Kharg Island, Iran, an explosion ripped apart an oil tanker dumping massive amounts of Iranian heavy crude 900 miles off the coast. The tanker burned for three days and subsequently sank on the the 1st of June of the same year. Efforts to locate the wreckage were unsuccessful.
1992 - Uzbekistan, 88 Million Gallons Spilled
March 2: This massive terrestrial oil spill started at the Mingbulak oil field in the Fergana Valley. A blowout occurring at well #5 caught fire and burned for two months. Two million barrels were collected behind emergency dykes. The oil stopped flowing by itself.
1993 - USA, 338,000 Gallons Spilled
August 10: The spillage was caused when three ships collided, the barges Bouchard B155 and Ocean 255, and the freighter Balsa 37. The Bouchard spilled an estimated 338,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Florida's Tampa Bay.
1994 - Russia, 2 MIllion Barrels Spilled
October 1: A pipeline oil spill occurred in Usnisk in Northern Russia just South of the Arctic Circle. The leak started in February 1994 but was contained within a dyke built for the purpose. Following a heavy rainfall the dyke burst, spilling oil into the Kolva River, a US tributary. The U.S. Energy Department estimated the spill at 2 million barrels. The state-owned Russian oil company claimed the spill was only 102,000 barrels. On the 4th of November of the same year another oil spill was reported to be burning.
1996 - Wales, UK, 72 Tons of Oil Spilled
February 15: Supertanker Sea Empress ran aground at the entrance of Milford Haven Waterway in Pembrokeshire when she struck mid-channel rocks at St. Ann's Head. The spill occurred within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park - one of Europe's most important and sensitive wildlife and marine conservation areas, and created a 25-mile slick.
1999 - Border French/Spanish Atlantic Coast, 3 Million Gallons Spilled
December 12: Maltese-registered tanker Erika ran into a storm as she entered the Bay of Biscay. She broke in two, sinking and releasing 3 million gallons of oil into the sea.
2000 - Brazil, 343,200 Gallons Spilled
January 18: A ruptured pipeline at the Duque de Caxias oil refinery, owned by the government oil company, Petrobas, spewed heavy oil in Guanabara Bay off Rio de Janeiro. The leak was contained.
2000 - USA, 567,000 Gallons Spilled
November 28: The oil tanker Westchester lost power and ran aground near Port Sulphur, Louisiana, dumping crude oil into lower Mississippi. The spill was the largest in U.S. waters since the Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989.
2002 - Spain, 77,000 Metric Tons Spilled
November 13: Prestige was a Greek-operated, single-hulled oil tanker registered in the Bahamas. During a storm off the cost of Galicia, one of its tanks burst and the integrity of the single-hulled tanker quickly deteriorated. It was reported that a 40-foot section of the starboard hull had broken off, releasing a substantial amount of oil. After sinking, the tanker continued to leak 125 tons of oil a day.
2003 - Pakistan, 28,000 Tons Spilled
July 28: The Tasman Spirit ran aground near the Karachi port, eventually cracking in two. One of its four oil tanks burst open, leaking crude into the sea.
2004 - USA, 337,000 Gallons Spilled
December 7: A major storm pushed the M/V Selendang Ayu onto a rocky shore, breaking it in two. Most of the oil was driven onto the shoreline of Makushin and Skan Bays.
2005 - USA, 7 Million Gallons Spilled
August – September: Damage in New Orleans, Louisiandn caused by Hurricane Katrina, caused oil leaks from various sources, including pipelines, oil storage tanks and industrial plants.
2006 - USA, 71,000 Barrels Spilled
June 19: A violent storm caused a waste oil tank at the CITGO Refinery at Calcasieu River to break and deposit its contents on the riverbank.
2006 - Lebanon, 3 - 10 MIllion Gallons Spilled
July 15: The Israeli navy bombing of the Jieh coast power station in Beirut caused leaks which affected nearly 100 miles of coastline. A wartime coastal blockade hampered outside clean-up efforts.
2006 - Philippines, 530,000 Gallons Spilled
August 11: M/T Solar 1 sank off the coast putting the country's fishing and tourism industries at great risk. The ship sank in deep water, making it virtually unrecoverable, and continued to emit oil into the ocean as other nations were called in to assist in the clean-up effort.
2007 - Korea, 2.8 Million Gallons Spilled
December 7: The Hebei Spirit collided with a steel wire connecting a tugboat and barge five miles off South Korea's west coast. Seven thousand people tried to clean up 12 miles of oil-coated coastline.
2008 - USA, 419,000 Gallons Spilled
July 25: A 61-foot American Commercial Lines Barge collided with the 600-foot oil tanker Tintomara in the Mississippi River near New Orleans. The tanker sustained no damage but the crash split the barge nearly in two, dumping oil into the river just off the banks of downtown New Orleans. The Coast Guard closed off a 100-mile stretch of river from the port of New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico, while cleanup efforts commenced to limit the environmental impact on local wildlife.
2009 - Australia, 52,000 Gallons Spilled
March 11: During Cyclone Hamish, unsecured cargo aboard the container ship MV Pacific Adventurer came loose on deck causing the release 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 - USA, 462,000 Gallons Spilled
January 23: The oil tanker Eagle Otome and a barge collided in the Sabine-Neches Waterway. 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.
2010 - USA, 206 Million Gallons Spilled, 11 Oil Workers Killed
April 22: British Petroleums's semi-submersible drilling rig the Deep Water Horizon sank in the Gulf of Mexico following an April 20th explosion in the vessel. When the rig sank, the risern (a 5,000-foot-long pipe connecting to the wellhead to the rig) detached and started leaking oil. U.S. Coast Guard investigators additionally discovered a leak in the wellhead itself.
For 87 days as many as 60,000 barrells of oil per day gushed into the Gulf. Oil reached the Louisiana shore on April 30, affecting 125 miles of coast. By early June, oil had reached Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. It is the larget oil spill in U.S. history. Oil gushed from the broken well for more than 85 days, covering 572 miles of Gulf shoreline killing countless birds and marine life. BP made several unsuccessful attempts to plug the well, but oil flowed possibly at a rate as high as 2.5 million gallons a day until the well was capped on July 15. The long term effects of the oil, and the 1.82 million gallons of dispersant used on this fragile ecosystem remain unknown, but experts say they could devastate the Gulf for years to come.
