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
History of the oil tanker typical T2 tanker of the World War II era was long and had a capacity of . A modern ultra-large crude carrier (ULCC) can be long and have a capacity of . Several factors encouraged this growth. Hostilities in the Middle East which interrupted traffic through the Suez Canal contributed, as did nationalization of Middle East oil refineries. Intense competition among shipowners also played a part. But apart from these considerations is a simple economic advantage: The larger an oil tanker is, the more cheaply it can move crude oil, and the better it can help meet growing demands for