Oil Spills and Disasters The following list includes major oil spills since 1967. The circumstances surrounding the spill, amount of oil spilled, and the attendant environmental damage is also given. 1967 March 18, Cornwall, Eng.:Torrey Canyonran aground, spilling 38 million gallons of crude oil off the Scilly Islands. 1976 Dec. 15, Buzzards Bay, Mass.:Argo Merchantran aground and broke apart southeast of Nantucket Island, spilling its entire cargo of 7.7 million gallons of fuel oil. 1977 April, North Sea:blowout of well in Ekofisk oil field leaked 81 million gallons. 1978 March 16, off Portsall, France:wrecked supertankerAmoco Cadizspilled 68 million gallons, causing widespread environmental damage over 100 mi of Brittany coast. 1979 June 3, Gulf of Mexico:exploratory oil well Ixtoc 1 blew out, spilling an estimated 140 million gallons of crude oil into the open sea. Although it is one of the largest known oil spills, it had a low environmental impact. July 19, Tobago:theAtlantic Empressand theAegean Captaincollided, spilling 46 million gallons of crude. While being towed, theAtlantic Empressspilled an additional 41 million gallons off Barbados on Aug. 2. 1980 March 30, Stavanger, Norway:floating hotel in North Sea collapsed, killing 123 oil workers. 1983 Feb. 4, Persian Gulf, Iran:Nowruz Field platform spilled 80 million gallons of oil. Aug. 6, Cape Town, South Africa:the Spanish tankerCastillo de Bellvercaught fire, spilling 78 million gallons of oil off the coast. 1988 July 6, North Sea off Scotland:166 workers killed in explosion and fire on Occidental Petroleum'sPiper Alpharig in North Sea; 64 survivors. It is the world's worst offshore oil disaster. Nov. 10, Saint John's, Newfoundland:Odysseyspilled 43 million gallons of oil. 1989 March 24, Prince William Sound, Alaska:tankerExxon Valdezhit an undersea reef and spilled 10 million–plus gallons of oil into the water, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Dec. 19, off Las Palmas, the Canary Islands:explosion in Iranian supertanker, theKharg-5,caused 19 million gallons of crude oil to spill into Atlantic Ocean about 400 mi north of Las Palmas, forming a 100-square-mile oil slick. 1990 June 8, off Galveston, Tex.:Mega Borgreleased 5.1 million gallons of oil some 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston as a result of an explosion and subsequent fire in the pump room. 1991 Jan. 23–27, southern Kuwait:during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 mi off Kuwait. Spill had little military significance. On Jan. 27, U.S. warplanes bombed pipe systems to stop the flow of oil. April 11, Genoa, Italy:Havenspilled 42 million gallons of oil in Genoa port. May 28, Angola:ABT Summerexploded and leaked 15–78 million gallons of oil off the coast of Angola. It's not clear how much sank or burned. 1992 March 2, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan:88 million gallons of oil spilled from an oil well. 1993 Aug. 10, Tampa Bay, Fla.:three ships collided, the bargeBouchard B155,the freighterBalsa 37,and the bargeOcean 255.TheBouchardspilled an estimated 336,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Tampa Bay. 1994 Sept. 8, Russia:dam built to contain oil burst and spilled oil into Kolva River tributary. U.S. Energy Department estimated spill at 2 million barrels. Russian state-owned oil company claimed spill was only 102,000 barrels. 1996 Feb. 15, off Welsh coast:supertankerSea Empressran aground at port of Milford Haven, Wales, spewed out 70,000 tons of crude oil, and created a 25-mile slick. 1999 Dec. 12, French Atlantic coast:Maltese-registered tankerErikabroke apart and sank off Britanny, spilling 3 million gallons of heavy oil into the sea. 2000 Jan. 18, off Rio de Janeiro:ruptured pipeline owned by government oil company, Petrobras, spewed 343,200 gallons of heavy oil into Guanabara Bay. Nov. 28, Mississippi River south of New Orleans:oil tankerWestchesterlost power and ran aground near Port Sulphur, La., dumping 567,000 gallons of crude oil into lower Mississippi. Spill was largest in U.S. waters sinceExxon Valdezdisaster in March 1989. 2002 Nov. 13, Spain:Prestigesuffered a damaged hull and was towed to sea and sank. Much of the 20 million gallons of oil remains underwater. 2003 July 28, Pakistan:TheTasman Spirit,a tanker, ran aground near the Karachi port, and eventually cracked into two pieces. One of its four oil tanks burst open, leaking 28,000 tons of crude oil into the sea. 2004 Dec. 7, Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska:A major storm pushed the M/VSelendang Ayuup onto a rocky shore, breaking it in two. 337,000 gallons of oil were released, most of which was driven onto the shoreline of Makushin and Skan Bays.