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
Hydraulic tanker Hydraulic tanker An hydraulic tanker is an oil tanker designed to use water as an incompressible fluid for loading and unloading petroleum cargo. Each cargo tank is kept full at all times so oil floating on water will be pressed against the top of the tank. A cargo tank initially filled with water is loaded with the desired quantity of oil by pumping oil into the top of the tank displacing water which overflows through an opening at the bottom of the tank. The cargo tank is unloaded by removing oil from the top of the tank as water is