Oil spills – a very costly business

Every time an ocean-going vessel has an accident – or worse, founders completely – there is a public outcry and immediate demands for safer seas. There are, thankfully, very few accidents at sea, but when they happen the environmental lobby has a field day. Admittedly, a major oil spill is not a pretty sight, but one wonders if the general public is more concerned with possible damage to seabirds and sea mammals, than with the loss of seafarer’s life. Some EU countries – among them Spain and France – want to criminalize officers on ocean going vessels on charges of polluting the environment. There have been premeditated acts of discharges of oily wastewater, but no seafarer would deliberately put his vessel at risk.

There has been a steady decline in the number of major tanker spills since statistics began in 1970. This is particularly so in the past three to four years. According to the International Tanker Owners’ Pollution Federation (ITOPF) a total of 3.1 million tonnes were spilt in the 1970s, while in the 1980s 1.2 million tonnes resulted from a variety of incidents. In the 1990s 1.1 million tonnes was spilt.

After 2000 the biggest spill came from “Prestige” in 2002 with 77,000 tonnes, including the cargo and the bunkers, whether or not it has escaped the vessel. It is interesting to note that in the period from 1974 to 2003 3.1 million tonnes were spilt during operations, 536,000 tonnes in collisions, 554,000 tonnes by groundings, 703,000 tonnes by hull failure and 125,000 tonnes in fires and explosions. 2.3 million tonnes were spilt through unknown causes.

The biggest incidents
The biggest incident since 1970 was the “Atlantic Express” off Tobago in the West Indies in 1979 when the size of the spill was 287,000 tonnes. Nearly as bad was the 260,000 tonnes spilt from ABT Summer 700 nautical miles off Angola in 1991.

Next in line was the Castillo de Bellver off Saldanha Bay in South Africa in 1983 when 252,000 tonnes escaped. The fourth biggest incident was the “Amoco Cadiz” off Brittany in France in 1978 with 223,000 tonnes spilt. High profile incidents like the “Sea Empress” and “Exxon Valdez” do not rank very high when measured in metric tons spilt with 72,000 tonnes and 37,000 tonnes respectively.

The cost of spills
Most oil spills are costly depending on contingency plans and the management of the actual response operation. Up until the last few years very few countries have paid much attention to such contingency plans until after the incident. The amount of oil spilled bears no real relation to the cost of the clean-up and other forms of compensation for damage caused. Other factors are the type of oil spilled, location, rate of spillage and whether the clean-up can be done at sea or on the shoreline. Both the “Nakhodka”, “Erika” and the ”Prestige” spilt heavy fuel oil, which is highly persistent and in all cases came ashore on a long coastline.

The costliest
By far the most expensive oil spill in history was the “Exxon Valdez”. Clean-up alone came to USD 2.5 billion, but including fines, penalties and other claims the total bill was USD 9.5 billion. When “Amoco Cadiz” went aground in the Brittany coast in 1978 the total cost was reportedly around USD 282.0 million and the Braer in 1993 came to USD 83.0 million. In the latter incident most of the oil dispersed naturally and clean-up costs were low.

However, USD 61.0 billion was paid out to the fishing industry. Many of the claims from the more recent accidents have not yet been settled. “Erika” will reach the limit of Compensation Conventions, which is USD 180 million. No final assessment is available for the “Prestige”, but it is bound to exceed the limit.

//Petter Arentz