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.
Refugio Fact Sheet (as of May 20, 2015) by the California Office of Spill Response and Prevention:
Refugio-Fact-Sheet