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Gallery: Top 5 costliest oil spills
A look at the top 5 most costly oil spills of all time.
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2) The Exxon Valdez oil spill – Alaska, USA – $3.8 billion
The Exxon Valdiz oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef. The tanker spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil over the next few days. The region is a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals and seabirds. The oil, originally extracted at the Prudhoe Bay oil field, eventually covered 1,300 miles of coastline, and 11,000 square miles of ocean.
3) Amoco Cadiz – Brittany, France – $3 billion
On the 17 March 1978, following a severe storm off the coast of France, the Amoco Cadiz broke in two, releasing its entire cargo of 1.6 million barrels of oil. It broke again eleven days later from the buffeting of high stormy seas. The wreckage was later completely destroyed with depth charges by the French Navy.
4) Prestige oil spill – Galicia, Spain – $2.8 billion
The Prestige oil tanker sank off the coast of Galicia, Spain in 2002, leaking 77,000 metric tons of oil onto the French, Spanish and Portuguese coast. The spill is the largest environmental disaster in the history of both Spain and Portugal.
5) Ixtoc – Bay of Campeche, Mexico – $1.5 billion
On 3 June 1979, the exploratory Ixtoc well suffered an enormous blowout which resulted in one of the largest oil spills in history. A total of 3 million barrels of oil leaked into the ocean, initially at a rate of 30,000 barrels per day. It took nearly 10 months to stop the leak.
