"Amoco Cadiz oil spill The oil tanker ""Amoco Cadiz"" ran aground on Portsall Rocks, from the coast of Brittany, France, on 16 March 1978, and ultimately split in three and sank, all together resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date. NOAA estimates that the total oil spill amounted to 220,880 metric tonnes of oil. En route from the Persian Gulf to Rotterdam, Netherlands, via a scheduled stop at Lyme Bay, Great Britain, the ship encountered stormy weather with gale conditions and high seas while in the English Channel. At around 09:45, a heavy"
"Odyssey (tanker) 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 off the coast of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia when it sank and released 132,157 tons (43 million gallons) of oil into the ocean. By way of comparison, 4.3 times as much oil was spilled by the ""Odyssey"" as from the much more famous"
"Torrey Canyon oil spill The ""Torrey Canyon"" oil spill was one of the world's most serious oil spills. The supertanker ran aground on a reef off the south-west coast of the United Kingdom in 1967, spilling an estimated 25–36 million gallons (94–164 million litres) of crude oil. Attempts to mitigate the damage included the bombing of the wreck by aircraft from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, causing a potential international incident, as the ship was not British, and was in international waters. Hundreds of miles of coastline in Britain, France, Guernsey, and Spain were affected by the oil"
"Amoco Cadiz Amoco Cadiz was a very large crude carrier (VLCC) owned by Amoco Transport Corp and transporting crude oil for Shell Oil. Operating under the Liberian flag of convenience, she ran aground on 16 March 1978 on Portsall Rocks, 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. On 16 March 1978 in a southwesterly gale, the ""Amoco Cadiz"" passed Ushant at the western tip of Brittany, headed for Lyme Bay in the United Kingdom. At 9:46 am when the supertanker"
"2s began to replace the Mk 1s and the Scimitars, completing the process by November of that year. In March 1967 the oil tanker Torrey Canyon ran aground on Seven Stones Reef near Lands End and started to leak thousands of tons of crude oil into the sea, putting nearby beaches at risk of pollution. In an attempt to minimise the damage to the environment, the Buccaneers of 800 NAS along with those of the training squadron 736 NAS were ordered to destroy the tanker and its cargo. Flying from RNAS Brawdy in Wales on 28 March 1967, eight Buccaneers"
"Bridgeton incident The ""Bridgeton"" incident was the mining of the supertanker near Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf on July 24, 1987. The ship was sailing in the first convoy of Operation Earnest Will, the U.S. response to Kuwaiti requests to protect its tankers from attack amid the Iran–Iraq War. The explosion of an Iranian mine in the Gulf's shipping channel damaged ""Bridgeton""<nowiki>'</nowiki>s outer hull but did not prevent it from completing its voyage. Within a year of launching the Iran–Iraq War in 1980, Iraq began attacking ships carrying oil from Iranian ports, seeking to intimidate Tehran's allies and trading"
"Whiddy Island disaster The Whiddy Island disaster, also known as the ""Betelgeuse"" incident, occurred on 8 January 1979, around 1:00 am, when the oil tanker ""Betelgeuse"" exploded in Bantry Bay, at the offshore jetty for the oil terminal at Whiddy Island, Ireland. The explosion was attributed to the failure of the ship's structure during an operation to discharge its cargo of oil. The tanker was owned by Total S.A., and the oil terminal was owned and operated by Gulf Oil. The explosion and resulting fire claimed the lives of 50 people (42 French nationals, seven Irish nationals, and one British"
"incident occurred when a supertanker, the ""Torrey Canyon"" hit the Pollard’s Rock, tearing a gash in her side and spilling 860,000 barrels of oil into the sea. Westerly winds and currents caused the oil to pollute of the Cornish coast and of the Brittany coast. She now lies in of water. Large amounts of toxic detergent was sprayed on the oil in an attempt to disperse it and, along with the oil, accounted for the loss of much of the marine life and 15,000 birds. At the time it was the world's costliest shipping disaster, and to date, still the"
"or Lost"". MV Sea Empress The MV ""Sea Empress"" was a single-hull 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 twelfth 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. On the evening of 15 February 1996 the ""Sea Empress"" was entering the mouth of the Cleddau Estuary on her way into Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire"
"was recovered from the wreck, has been erected in the hillside graveyard overlooking the harbour. The bodies of two unidentified casualties from the incident are interred nearby. Whiddy Island disaster The Whiddy Island disaster, also known as the ""Betelgeuse"" incident, occurred on 8 January 1979, around 1:00 am, when the oil tanker ""Betelgeuse"" exploded in Bantry Bay, at the offshore jetty for the oil terminal at Whiddy Island, Ireland. The explosion was attributed to the failure of the ship's structure during an operation to discharge its cargo of oil. The tanker was owned by Total S.A., and the oil terminal"
"assigned to escort the Kuwaiti oil tankers. On that very first escort mission, on 24 July 1987, the Kuwaiti oil tanker ""al-Rekkah"", re-flagged as the U.S. tanker MV ""Bridgeton"" and accompanied by US navy warships, struck an Iranian underwater mine planted some west of Farsi Island the night earlier by a Pasdaran special unit, damaging the ship, but causing no injuries. ""Bridgeton"" proceeded under her own power to Kuwait, with the thin-skinned U.S. Navy escorts following behind to avoid mines. The operation was widely publicized, and American reporters aboard another ship in the convoy immediately issued reports about the incident,"
"""Exxon Valdez"". Odyssey, built in 1971, was a 65,000-ton tanker operated by Polembros Shipping Ltd. of London, England, and registered in Liberia. On November 5, 1988, the tanker departed Sullom Voe Terminal in the Shetland Islands off Scotland, fully loaded with North Sea Brent Crude oil which was being transported to the Come By Chance Refinery at Come-by-Chance, Newfoundland and Labrador. When the ship was about 1000 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, a major North Atlantic storm arose, buffetting the ship with waves and 44-mile-per-hour winds. In response, the ship sent out a distress signal and kept heading"
"taking on the riskiest ventures. It earned the company massive profits; it also earned them the worst safety record in the industry. In 1967, the giant oil tanker ""Torrey Canyon"" foundered off the English coast. Over of crude oil was spilled into the Atlantic and onto the beaches of Cornwall and Brittany, causing Britain's worst-ever oil spill. The ship was owned by the Bahamas-based Barracuda Tanker Corporation and was flying the flag of Liberia, a well-known flag of convenience, but was being chartered by British Petroleum. The ship was bombed by RAF jet bombers in an effort to break up"
"reopening of the Suez canal and upgrading of the older European oil terminals (Europoort and Marchwood) meant that the financial return from these projects was not all that had been hoped for. The Bantry terminal was devastated by the explosion of a Total tanker, the ""Betelgeuse"", in January 1979 (Whiddy Island disaster) and it was never fully reopened. The Irish government took over ownership of the terminal in 1986 and held its strategic oil reserve there. In the 1970s, Gulf participated in the development of new oilfields in the UK North Sea and in Cabinda, although these were high-cost operations"
"Exxon Valdez Oriental Nicety, formerly Exxon Valdez, Exxon Mediterranean, SeaRiver Mediterranean, S/R Mediterranean, Mediterranean, and Dong Fang Ocean, was an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil in Alaska. On March 24, 1989, while owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company, and captained by Joseph Hazelwood and First Mate James Kunkel 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 ,"
"on the 16 of November 1987. Next voyage vas planned from Odessa to Vietnam again. On December 19, 1989, the Iranian tanker ""Khark 5"" bound for refineries in Northern Europe exploded and caught fire approximately 400 miles north of the Canary Islands. An estimated 452,400 barrels (19 million gallons) of the 1,714,300 barrels (72 million gallons) on board spilled into the sea. The 35 crew members were rescued by the passing Soviet vessel ""Sarny"". Ocean currents carried the abandoned vessel south towards the Canary Islands. The ""Khark 5"" was sinking. On December 20, 1989, Wednesday, ""Los Angeles Times"" wrote: MS"
"Tanio oil spill The ""Tanio"" oil spill occurred March 7, 1980 when the ""Tanio,"" an oil tanker of Madagascan origin traveling from Wilhelmshaven to Civitavecchia split in two 60 km off the coast of Brittany, France in rough weather, spilling about 13,500 tons of cargo oil into the English Channel and killing 8 sailors. The stern section of the boat was towed to Le Havre by a British cargo ship despite the strong wind. The bow, however, sunk, leaking 5,000 tons of oil. After the spill, strong winds moved the oil toward the Breton coast. Oil began to wash a"
"1989 Narragansett Bay oil spill On June 23, 1989, several hundred thousand gallons of fuel oil were spilled at the mouth of the Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island after the tanker MV ""World Prodigy"" ran aground on a reef near Aquidneck Island. ""World Prodigy"", a long ship operated by Ballard Shipping under the Greek flag, was inbound to Providence and Tiverton, Rhode Island when at about 16:40 local time she ran aground on Brenton Reef, about offshore from Brenton Point State Park, after passing the wrong side of a buoy marking the channel. She had a cargo of about 8.1"
"MV Sea Empress The MV ""Sea Empress"" was a single-hull 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 twelfth 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. On the evening of 15 February 1996 the ""Sea Empress"" was entering the mouth of the Cleddau Estuary on her way into Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire to deposit"
"a destroyer in or around the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. As well, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier and its task force were nearby in the Indian Ocean, while the battleship , two more cruisers, and a helicopter carrier were patrolling the area. The operation's plan called for convoys protected by three or four U.S. warships and carrier-based aircraft, including A-6 attack aircraft, F/A-18 strike fighters, EA-6B jamming aircraft, and F-14 fighters. On July 21, 1987, the 414,266-ton ""Bridgeton"" and the 48,233-ton gas tanker ""Gas Prince"" sailed from the Gulf of Oman under the protection of three U.S."
"SS Atlantic Empress 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. The ""Atlantic Empress"" was a large crude oil carrier built at the ""Odense Staalskibsværft"" shipyard in Odense, Denmark, and launched on 16 February 1974. At the time of her sinking she was owned by the South Gulf Shipping Company of Greece, and flagged in Liberia. On 19 July 1979 ""Atlantic Empress"" collided with the ""Aegean Captain"", another fully laden"
"a portion of its cargo of oil. In 1984, a serious explosion on a tanker being repaired in the Haven resulted in three fatalities. In 1996, it was the location of the ""Sea Empress"" oil spill, initially thought to be one of the most devastating oil tanker disasters the UK has ever seen. In the event, recovery has been surprisingly good, perhaps partly because of the very strong tides. The comparable ""Torrey Canyon"" spill in 1968, a ship which had been heading to Milford Haven, affected shores further south around southern Cornwall and northern France, was actually far more damaging."
"used F-4 Phantoms II and helicopters to launch Maverick missiles and unguided rockets at tankers. A U.S. Navy ship, , was struck on 17 May 1987 by two Exocet anti-ship missiles fired from an Iraqi F-1 Mirage plane. The missiles had been fired at about the time the plane was given a routine radio warning by ""Stark"". The frigate did not detect the missiles with radar, and warning was given by the lookout only moments before they struck. Both missiles hit the ship, and one exploded in crew quarters, killing 37 sailors and wounding 21. Lloyd's of London, a British"
"forces for operations against American cruisers. On 24 July 1987, United States naval forces escorted the Kuwaiti oil tanker ""al-Rekkah"" in the Persian Gulf. Al-Rekkah changed to a United States's flag and also changed its name to ""Bridgeton"". The escort mission was assigned to three cruisers of the United States Navy, USS ""Crommelin"", USS ""Fox"", and USS ""Kidd"". The escorted caravan arrived 13 miles west of the Iranian Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf, and hit underwater mines. Nader Mahdavi's mission was preventing ""Bridgeton""s movement. A mine explosion caused a 43 square metre dent in the body of the oil"
"Piper Alpha Piper Alpha was an oil production platform in the North Sea approximately north-east of Aberdeen, Scotland, that was operated by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Limited. It began production in 1976, initially as an oil-only platform but later converted to add gas production. An explosion and resulting oil and gas fires destroyed Piper Alpha on 6 July 1988, killing 167 people, including two crewmen of a rescue vessel; 61 workers escaped and survived. Thirty bodies were never recovered. The total insured loss was about £1.7 billion ($3.4 billion), making it one of the costliest manmade catastrophes ever. At the time"
"and the remainder Chinese. Shortly before dawn on 5 December 1987 an explosion occurred 23 miles off the Spanish coast at Cape Finisterre, setting the ship on fire. The captain broadcast an SOS about an hour later, and those crew not caught by the flames jumped into the sea to escape. All but eight died, including the captain and one woman. The ship grounded on rocks 150 metres (450 feet) offshore, still burning, and broke up. Initial reports were that the deaths were mainly from drowning and hypothermia; the local hospital later reported that one drowned but the remainder died"
"Finally, on 3 August, the ""Empress"" sank, having spilled 287,000 metric tonnes of crude oil into the Caribbean Sea. By comparison, in the ""Exxon Valdez"" spill ten years later only 37,000 metric tonnes of oil was released. SS Atlantic Empress 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. The ""Atlantic Empress"" was a large crude oil carrier built at the ""Odense Staalskibsværft"" shipyard in Odense, Denmark, and launched on 16"
"famous Clarke & Dawe sketch, ""The Front Fell Off"" from ""A Current Affair"". Kirki (tanker) The Kirki was a 210 metre long Greek-registered oil tanker which caught fire on 21 July 1991, 30 km west of the fishing town of Cervantes, Western Australia. The fire resulted in the ship's bow tearing off, rupturing the forward storage tanks and causing an oil spill initially estimated at 2.9 million gallons. At the time it was the worst oil spill to have occurred in Australian waters. The vessel remained afloat and traveled north to the waters off Cape Preston where oil remaining in"
"Bligh Reef Bligh Reef, sometimes known as Bligh Island Reef, is a reef off the coast of Bligh Island in Prince William Sound, Alaska. This was the location of the 1989 ""Exxon Valdez"" oil spill. After the incident, US Code 33 § 2733 mandated the operation of an automated navigation light to prevent future collisions with the reef. Despite these efforts the tug ""Pathfinder"" ran aground on Bligh Reef on Dec 24, 2009, rupturing its tanks and spilling diesel fuel. Bligh Reef is also where Alaska Steamship Company's Olympia ran aground in 1910. Bligh Reef serves as a fishing ground"
"oilfield. In April 1988, the company acquired Cain Chemical for $2 billion. On July 6, 1988, an explosion and subsequent inferno on the company's Piper Alpha platform in the Scottish North Sea, resulted in 167 fatalities in what remains the world's most deadly offshore disaster. In September 1988, the company formed a joint venture with Church & Dwight, which makes Arm & Hammer products, for a potassium carbonate plant at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. In 1990, Armand Hammer died and Dr. Ray R. Irani became chairman and chief executive officer of the company. In 1991, the company sold its stake in"
"safety authority. The accident happened in rough weather while the tanker ""Navion Britannica"" was loading oil from a storage buoy, according to the operator Equinor. Statfjord oil field The Statfjord oil field is an enormous oil and gas field covering 580 km in the U.K.-Norwegian boundary of the North Sea at a water depth of 145 m, discovered in 1974 by Mobil and since 1987 operated by Statoil. It is a trans-median field crossing the Norwegian and UK North Sea Boundary with approximately 15% being in the UK Continental Shelf waters. At peak production it produced over of oil per"
"ship while it was aground. A South African tugboat, the ""John Ross"", was contracted by the firm Pentow Marine to tow the crippled tanker into the Channel where the remaining oil would be transferred to another tanker. During the tow the ""Katina P"" buckled amidships and on 26 April 1992 sank in of water, from the Mozambican coast and north-east of Maputo. It is not clear why the oil transfer was not done at an early stage of the tow, as time was obviously of the essence. The south-moving Agulhas current spread the spilled oil into Maputo Bay, the estuaries"
"oil. A full scale emergency plan was activated by the authorities. News of the grounding was first reported at 21:18 on the BBC's Nine O'Clock News – just over an hour after she ran aground. Over the next few days, efforts to pull the vessel from the rocks continued. Tugboats were drafted in from the ports of Dublin, Liverpool and Plymouth to assist with the salvage operation. The ""Sea Empress"" disaster occurred in Britain's only coastal national park and in one of only three UK marine nature reserves. The tanker ran aground very close to the islands of Skomer and"