Amoco Cadiz

Amoco Cadiz was a supertanker owned by Amoco Transport Corp and transporting crude oil for Shell Oil. Operating under the Liberian flag of convenience, she ran aground on 16 March 1978 on Portsall Rocks, 5 km (3 mi) from the coast of Brittany, France. Ultimately she split in three and sank, resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date.[1][2]

The sinking Amoco Cadiz
History
Name: Amoco Cadiz
Owner: Amoco Transport Co.
Port of registry:  Liberia
Builder:
Yard number: 95
Laid down: 24 November 1973
Launched: 1974
Completed: May 1975
Out of service: 16 March 1978
Identification: IMO number: 7336422
Fate: Sunk at 48.6°N 4.7°W / 48.6; -4.7
Notes: [1]
General characteristics
Tonnage: 233,690 DWT; 109,700 GRT
Length: 334.02 m (1,095.9 ft)
Beam: 51.06 m (167.5 ft)
Draught: 19.80 m (65.0 ft)
Installed power:
Propulsion: Single screw
Speed: 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Capacity: 1.6 Mbbl (250×10^3 m3)
Crew: 44
Notes: [1][2]

Oil spill
Main article: Amoco Cadiz oil spill

On 16 March 1978 in a southwesterly gale, the Amoco Cadiz passed Ushant at the western tip of Brittany, headed for Lyme Bay in the United Kingdom. At 9:46 am when the supertanker was north of Ushant and 16 nautical miles (30 km; 18 mi) west of Portsall she turned to avoid another ship and her rudder jammed, full over to port. The captain shut down the engine and attempted to make repairs, but they were not successful. Meanwhile, the wind began blowing from the northwest, driving the ship toward the coast. By the time the tugboat Pacific successfully attached a hawser, it was 2:00 pm and the Amoco Cadiz had drifted 6 nautical miles (11 km; 6.9 mi) closer to the shore. For two hours, the tugboat struggled to slow the vessel's drift, but then the towline parted. The captain of the Amoco Cadiz turned his engines on full astern and this helped slow the ship's drift. At 7:00 pm, the captain shut down the engines so that the Pacific could try to attach another hawser. The supertanker dropped one anchor, but the flukes broke off. At this point the supertanker was drifting at 2 knots (3.7 km/h; 2.3 mph) toward the Portsall Rocks. A new towline was successfully attached at 8:55 pm but the Amoco Cadiz hit a rock soon afterward and began to leak. At 9:30 pm near the Corn-Carhai lighthouse, a rock ripped a hole in the ship and flooded the engine room.[3]

Amoco Cadiz contained 1,604,500 barrels (219,797 tons) of light crude oil from Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia and Kharg Island, Iran.[4] Severe weather resulted in the complete breakup of the ship before any oil could be pumped out of the wreck, resulting in her entire cargo of crude oil (belonging to Shell) and 4,000 tons of fuel oil being spilled into the sea.[5] The US NOAA estimates that the total oil spill amounted to 220,880 metric tonnes of oil.[6]

Aftermath

On 29 March 1978, the French Navy dropped depth charges to dismantle parts of the vessel.[7][8][4]

In 1988 a U.S. federal judge ordered Amoco Oil Corporation to pay $85.2 million in fines; $45 million for the costs of the spill and $39 million in interest.[4] In 1992, Amoco agreed to pay $230 million.[9]

The site is visited by leisure divers.[10]

See also
  • SS Torrey Canyon – nearby and similar oil spill disaster in 1967
  • MT Haven – formerly Amoco Milford Haven, sister ship of Amoco Cadiz, that sank causing an oil spill disaster in 1991
  • List of environment topics
  • List of oil spills

References
  1. "Amoco Cadiz (IMO 7336422): Summary for Casualty ID 19780316_001". Casualty Database. Center for Tankship Excellence. Archived from the original on 25 July 2011. Retrieved 16 June 2010.
  2. Visser, Auke (26 August 2010). "Amoco Cadiz". International Super Tankers. Archived from the original on 4 March 2012. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
  3. Calder, Nigel (1986). The English Channel. Harrisonburg, Va.: Viking. pp. 32–33. ISBN 0-670-80022-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  4. Boileau, David; Allen, Tony; Claes, Johnny (4 July 2009). "Amoco Cadiz (+1978)". The Wrecksite. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  5. Hartog, C. den; Jacobs, R.P.W.M. (March 1980). "Effects of the Amoco Cadiz Oil Spill on an Eelgrass Community at Roscoff (France) with special reference to the mobile benthic fauna". Helgoland Marine Research. Berlin / Heidelberg: Springer. 33 (1–4): 182–191. Bibcode:1980HM.....33..182D. doi:10.1007/BF02414745.
  6. "Oil spill - Amoco Cadiz". incidentnews.noaa.gov. NOAA. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  7. "SYND 29 3 78 oil tanker Amoco Cadiz depth charges". YouTube. AP Archive.
  8. Ness, Wilmot N. (1978). The Amoco Cadiz Oil Spill: A Preliminary Scientific Report. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. p. 233, 279. Archived from the original on 2010.
  9. "Amoco agrees to pay US$230m". www.insurance-times.net. 1 August 1992.
  10. "40 years on, Brittany tanker wreck is magnet for divers". phys.org. 9 October 2018.

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