What are the top ten worst oil spills?

Answer 1

This is a pretty contentious question. You may find printed in the media that the BP spill is the worse, but then there are qualifiers or the conditions that bring it to the top of the list. How do you define "worse"- largest, most environmental damage, most costly.

The BP spill is ongoing, but when it ends, it may be the most costly spill in the world. I don't think it will be the largest, but this is speculative because the rate estimates are still be identified.

In the end, the Atlantic Express (1979) may rank as the world's largest recent spill. Ixtoc-1 well blowout is presently the largest blow out in the Gulf Coast but the BP spill far surpasses it in cost.

- See links.

Answer 2

I have included several lists. This question will lead to another question- how do I determine how bad an oil spill is? A common criteria is the amount of oil spilled, but an oil spill in the middle of the ocean is likely to have less impact than one close to shore.

Second, it has widely been reported that the BP oil spill is the largest in history. This is true if one is examining only deepwater offshore spills and not taking into account the efforts to contain, burn, collect and disperse the oil. In terms of Gulf of Mexico oil spills, the tanker spills occurring in 1942 as a result of uboat attacks were probably in excess of 4 million barrels.

The largest ones were the result of warfare, so they were not accidents. This is part of the problem of compiling a list of the largest oil spills. Both the Iran-Iraq War and the Kuwaiti invasion in 1991 caused very large spills, and estimates vary greatly.

See related links for lists of oil spills.