Oil Spills
6 largest oil spills in the world
6 largest oil spills in the world
Oil spill map colored by area they are close too.
The Persian Gulf War Oil Spill (1991) : The Gulf War oil spill, or the Persian Gulf oil spill, was one of the largest oil spills in history, resulting from the Gulf War in 1991. It is estimated somewhere between 380 million and 580 million gallons (700,000 - 900,000 tonnes) of oil were intentionally spilled by Iraq forces, the oil slick that was created was 101 miles long by 42 miles wide creating a total of 4,242 square miles of oil. Early reports suggested the spill had been caused by the U.S, that they had sunk two oil tankers, but later it was shown Iraq had opened the oil valves, releasing oil from numerous tanks.
On the 26th of January 1991, Iraq forces had intentionally began dumping oil into the persian Gulf as a last ditch attempt to prevent U.S forces from landing on beaches of kuwait. After the Iraq army left Kuwait, they ignited the spilled oil to create the most damage to the country's oil industry. Because of the Gulf War and its aftermath, it was not cleaned up time wise. It took a number of weeks before international intervention could occur in suppressing the spill, and months to clean up the floating oil, nevermind taking into account the lasting environmental impacts from the hundreds of millions of barrels soaking into the earth and water.
BP’s Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (2010) : The Deepwater Horizon rig, was owned and operated by an offshore oil drilling company Transocean and leased by oil company BP (formerly known as The British Petroleum Company ltd.) is one of the world's largest oil companies. The Deepwater Horizon was located in the Macondo oil prospect in the Mississippi Canyon. The oil well (which was placed) is located on a seabed 4,993 feet below the surface and extended about 18,000 feet into the rock. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, burned, and eventually sank, killing 11 of 126 workers, with 17 left injured. Two days later the rig overturned, and damaged a pipe below, causing oil to spill into the surrounding water, oil continued to spill from the pipe for 87 days, releasing about 377,514 tonnes into the Gulf.
It was finally stopped on July 15, 2010. On December 15, 2010, the United States filed a complaint in District Court against BP Exploration & Production and other defendants responsible for the spill. The cause of the Deepwater Horizon disaster was a series of preventable missteps by engineers and workers. The spill had lasting effects on economic hardships for the people living there and environmental damage that can still be seen and talked about to this day.
The Ixtoc I was an oil rig in the Bay of Campeche, Gulf of Mexico by Mexico’s government-owned oil company Pemex in 1979. When circulation of drilling mud to the well failed, causing a blowout, explosion, and fire that resulted in the destruction and sinking of the rig. exploded on the morning of 3 June 1979 and released large amounts of oil into the marine environment. The problems began on 2 June 1979 when drilling reached a depth of 3,615 meters and the rig began to lose circulation.
Despite several attempts to get circulation on the well, the choice was made to seal the well. On June 3, during attempts to seal the well, high pressure caused mud to flow up the drill pipe onto the platform and it caught fire. The explosion destroyed the platform. When the well was finally capped on 23 March 1980, approximately 475,000 tons of oil and stretching 1,100 square miles. For 10 months the well poured into the Gulf, The well was eventually capped on March 23, 1980. One example of an impact, The Campeche Bay Shrimp ecosystem, important in exportation, was a shrimp harvesting ground of 15,000 square kilometers that was poisoned. This was especially damaging to larvae and juvenile shrimp, which are highly sensitive to oil contamination. Following the aftermath a combined research team collected 1,000 samples, which helped greatly advance knowledge of how oil behaves in the Gulf of Mexico.
On July 19, 1979, two VLCC tankers (very large crude carriers) collided about 10 miles off the island of Tobago in the Caribbean Sea during a rainstorm. SS Atlantic Empress was en route to Beaumont, Texas from Saudi Arabia. Built in 1974, the 5 year old tanker was headed to the Mobil Oil terminal with 276,000 tons of light crude oil. Heading in the opposite direction, the 210,257 dwt VLCC Aegean Captain was en route to Singapore with 200,000 tons of light and heavy oil. After impact both vessels began leaking oil immediately after the collision and both caught fire, and sank. 27 were killed and its estimated about 287,000 tonnes had spilled mostly from the Atlantic Empress, making it the largest ship-source spill.
The crew of the Aegean Captain managed to control the fire in the ship. The ship was towed the following days towards Trinidad and then Curacao, losing small quantities of oil on the way, which a tug boat sprayed. In Curacao, the cargo was transferred into other vessels. The burning Atlantic Empress was towed towards the open sea, surrounded by vessels hosing the fire and followed by an oil slick which was partly in flames. A major fire-fighting operation had happened as well as the treatment of the pollution. But despite the response team's efforts, a series of explosions occurred on the ship on the 23/24th of July. The 29th of July saw a more powerful explosion and the fire increased. The Atlantic Empress sank on the 2nd of August. Unfortunately at the time all eyes were on the explosion of the Ixtoc I drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, another disaster.
The Mingbulak oil spill also known as the Fergana Valley oil spill was the worst terrestrial oil spill in the history of Asia. A spill was caused by a blowout at the Mingbulak oil field in Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan. It was a Russian state-owned oil company that caused the oil spill. On March 2, 1992, the wells pipes blew up and the oil began to spew oil out of the pipes. It was a complete failure in the well system. The town was at an ultimate loss, losing more oil then they could afford. Because of the lack of well-capping and oil removing technology, the problem became larger as they tried to transfer oil from the contaminated areas into trucks which was a slow process. On April 6th, 1992, the well caught fire resulting in a sky of smoke which created more environmental and health concerns in the Uzbekistan area. This caused the local government to reach to the U.S. for assistance. The crude oil released from the well burned for two months. The oil stopped spilling from the well on its own, and after some time the oil was dried out. The overall impact wasn't long lasting and isn't affecting the environment anymore.
Komi Pipeline Oil/the Kolva river oil spill (1994) : A series of large crude oil spills occurred during the summer and fall of 1994 in a 70 km section of the pipeline in the Komi Republic of Russia. From August to September 1994, a series of massive oil pipeline leaks occurred in rural Northern Russia, the nearest town to the spill was Usinsk, about 30 km away. The pipeline owner, KomiNeft (Komi Oil), local authorities and the Russian government initially tried to downplay the extent of the spill. When oil started to show up in the Barents Sea, the world community was forced to control the environmental damage. The release has been estimated as high as 200,000 tonnes of oil, found at four major points over an 18 km length of an older pipeline. The scale of the spill was so large, it was visible from space. The pipeline, first placed in service in the early 1970s, had been leaking for some time, with major leaks first noted in 1988. Corrosion caused by oxygenated river water, which was mixed into the oil to assist in pumping, was a major factor in the pipeline’s decline. The communications requirements of the consequence containment, cleanup and reducing the risk are important both for the lessons learned and for planning a response. Take the bad construction techniques and society's chaos from the declining old communist system, while the Russian pipeline leak may be unique because of this and its sheer size, it does provide many examples and lessons.