The largest oil spills from tankers since 1967

Map of 12 locations · Worldwide

Groundings, collisions and explosions that put tens of thousands of tonnes of crude and condensate into the sea, from the Seven Stones reef in 1967 to the East China Sea in 2018. Each position is where the ship was lost or began to discharge, taken with the quantities from the record kept by spill investigators and response bodies. These are closed historical cases, several of which reshaped the law on tanker safety and compensation. The set follows the table of major spills that ITOPF, the shipowners' pollution response body, publishes with its annual statistics, transcribed by hand; the quantities are ITOPF's.

Places in this collection

  • 2018 Sanchi oil tanker collision — The Panama-registered Iranian tanker, carrying a cargo of ultra-light condensate from Iran to South Korea, collided with the Hong Kong-regi…
  • 1996 Sea Empress oil spill — At about 8pm on 15 February 1996 the tanker was approaching the narrow, rock-lined entrance channel to Milford Haven under pilotage in othe…
  • 1993 Braer oil spill — On the night of 4 January 1993 the Liberian tanker was running in a heavy storm on the short northern route from Norway to Canada when sea…
  • 1992 Katina P oil spill — The tanker was on passage from Venezuela to the Persian Gulf with a cargo of crude oil when it was caught in very large waves off Mozambiqu…
  • 1991 Haven oil spill — An explosion tore through the motor tanker on 11 April 1991 as it lay at anchor about seven miles off Genoa, unloading oil to the Multedo p…
  • 1983 Castillo de Bellver oil spill — The Spanish tanker was on passage from the Persian Gulf to Spain with a cargo of light crude when it exploded and caught fire on 6 August 1…
  • 1979 Independența oil spill — The Romanian-flagged tanker was carrying Libyan crude towards Istanbul when, at 5.30 on the morning of 15 November 1979, it collided with t…
  • 1979 Atlantic Empress oil spill — At seven in the evening on 19 July 1979, during a tropical rainstorm off Tobago, the bow of the loaded very large crude carrier Aegean Capt…
  • 1978 Amoco Cadiz oil spill — The American-owned, Liberian-flagged supertanker lost its steering mechanism and ran aground on the Portsall Rocks, three miles off the Bri…
  • 1975 Jakob Maersk oil spill — The tanker struck a sand bank at 12.30pm on 29 January 1975 as it tried to enter the Portuguese port of Leixões. Fire followed, and at its…
  • 1972 Sea Star oil spill — The tanker was carrying crude oil from Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia towards Rio de Janeiro when it collided with the Brazilian tanker Horta B…
  • 1967 Torrey Canyon oil spill — The Liberian-registered tanker, chartered by a subsidiary of the Union Oil Company of California and loaded with Kuwaiti crude, struck the…

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