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Oil spills account
for a fairly small portion of the total environmental damage around the world today. Nonetheless,
between 1970 and 2003, there were an estimated 5, 603, 000 tonnes of oil spilled into our water!
That's a lot of oil! That number is based only on spills over 7 tonnes in magnitude. Now consider this,
84% of all oil spills are less than 7 tonnes. This means that 5,603,000 tonnes accounts for
only 14% of the total number of oil spills.
IXTOC I |

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IXTOC I is an exploratory well that exploded and spilled 140 million gallons of oil in 1979-80. |
*Note: Clicking on the picture will take you to a
website with a bit more information about the incident.
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The number of major oil spills has decreased significantly over the last 30 years. There are approximately one-seventh
the number of major oil spills nowadays compared to what there was in the 70s. The largest spill occurred in 1979 when
the Atlantic Empress collided with another oil carrying ship and spilled 287, 000
tonnes of oil into the ocean before sinking. This is the world record for the most oil spilled in an
oil tanker accident.
Number of Oil Spills Over |

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Clicking on the picture will take you to a website with other interesting facts about oil spills. |
Quantity of Oil Spilled Year |

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Clicking on this picture will take you to a website with other interesting facts about oil spills. |
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The
quantity of oil spills per year has been decreasing fairly steadily, with a few exceptions. These charts can be somewhat
misleading individually. For example, look at the year 1991. On the number of spills chart, it is shown as a fairly
good year with only about 7 major oil spills. However, when you look at the chart of the quantity of oil spilled per
year, it is a different story. In 1991, there were 430,000 tonnes of oil spilled. On top of all that, over
half of that 430,000 was form one spill. The ABT Summer was approximately 700 nautical miles off the coast of Angola
when it expolded, allowing 260,000 tonnes of oil to leak into the ocean.
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