The Size of Oil Spills
Significant Marine Oil Spills + Refugio Spill
year | event | release duration | depth | distance offshore | oil released (% of DWH) | oil, US barrels | oil, million gallons (US) | oil, cubic meters | dispersant used | dispersant, cubic meters | spilled oil ref | dispersant ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1967 | Torrey Canyon spill | 12 days | surface | 25 km | 2 | 86,000 | 3.6 million | 14,000 | at sea and on UK beaches: BP1002 plus 11 unk others | 9,500 | Smith 1968 | Straughan 1971 |
1969 | Santa Barbara blowout | 11 days, reducded flow >1 year | 57 m | 9.5 km | 2 | 80,000 to 100,000 | 3.4 to 4.2 million | 13 to 16,000 | at sea Polycomplex A and unk Corexit | 294 | Straughan 1971 (Allen 1969) | Unico at sea (Case History) |
1979-80 | Ixtoc I blowout | 10 months | 50 m | 80 km | 75 | 3.7 million | 150 million | 580,000 | at sea Corexit 9527 | 5,600 | Anderson et al 1982 | Coast Guard (nd) & Lindblom, et. al (nd) |
1989 | Exxon Valdez spill | <1 day | surface | 2 km | 5 to 16 | 260,000 to 760,000 | 11 to 32 million | 42 to 120,000 | at sea Corexit 9580 (possibly 9527); on beaches Corexit 7664, 9580 and BP1100X | 15 | EV Oil Sprill Trustee Council 1994 | NOAA (nd) & EPA (nd) |
1991 | Kuwait oil field sabotage | 9 months | surface | shoreline | 120 to 170 | 6 to 8.2 million | 250 to 350 million | 0.95 to 1.3 million | none | none | UNEP 1993; Readman et al 1996 (and refs therein) | none |
2010 | Deepwater Horizon blowout | 87 days | 1,544 m | 73 km | 100 | 4.9 million | 210 million | 780,000 | at sea | 7,000 | Mcnutt 2011 | USGS pers. com. |
2015 | Refugio | 2-4 hours | surface | shoreline | 0.01 | 500 | 21,000 | 78 | none | none | CDFW OSPR 2015 | none |
note: 1 barrel = 42 US gallons = 159 liters = 0.15899 m3 = 0.1364 metric tons
Deepwater Horizon timeline of oil and dispersants into the sea. I created this figure from a variety of published accounts, from numerous discussion with the incident command, etc. Dispersant was applied both at the surface of the ocean (solid pink) and at the wellhead (approximately 1,500 m deep, dotted burgundy). The oil flow rates I report here are the rates estimated by the Flow Rate Technical Group, not the slightly lesser amount the courts recently (erroneously in my opinion) settled upon.
![Deepwater Horizon pollution timeline](http://oil.piratelab.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Figure1-1024x662.jpg)
Refugio Fact Sheet (as of May 20, 2015) by the California Office of Spill Response and Prevention:
Refugio-Fact-Sheet