Atlantic Empress
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The Atlantic Empress was a Greek oil tanker that was involved in two large oil spills. The spills together are the fourth largest oil spill on record[1] and the largest ship based spill[2].
On July 19, 1979 during a tropical rainstorm, the ship collided with the Aegean Captain, off Trinidad and Tobago, spilling 287,000 metric tonnes of oil consigned to Mobil. While being towed on August 2, the Atlantic Empress continued to spill an additional 41 million gallons (all together being 276,000 tonnes of crude oil) off Barbados. The Aegean Captain also spilt a large quantity of oil from her No 1 tank. The Atlantic Empress sank on 3rd August in deep water and her remaining cargo solidified. The spill from the two ships fortunately never came ashore.
In comparison, the Exxon Valdez spilled 37,000 metric tonnes of oil, ten years later.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Oil Spills and Disasters
- Largest Oil Spill Table Link inactive.
- Modern Marvels, Engineering Disasters 14 (2004)
- [3]
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