Amoco Cadiz oil spill Amoco Cadiz oil spill The oil tanker "Amoco Cadiz" ran aground on Portsall Rocks, from the coast of Brittany, France, on 16 March 1978, and ultimately split in three and sank, all together resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date. NOAA estimates that the total oil spill amounted to 220,880 metric tonnes of oil. En route from the Persian Gulf to Rotterdam, Netherlands, via a scheduled stop at Lyme Bay, Great Britain, the ship encountered stormy weather with gale conditions and high seas while in the English Channel. At around 09:45, a heavy
Oil tanker After "Glückauf" was lost in 1893 after being grounded in fog, Standard Oil purchased the sister ships. The 1880s also saw the beginnings of the Asian oil trade. The idea that led to moving Russian oil to the Far East via the Suez Canal was the brainchild of two men: importer Marcus Samuel and shipowner/broker Fred Lane. Prior bids to move oil through the canal had been rejected by the Suez Canal Company as being too risky. Samuel approached the problem a different way: asking the company for the specifications of a tanker it would allow through the canal. Armed