Aquatic Pollution and Coastal Management

Unit 6 : Oil pollution

6.2.1.Tanker Accidents
A large number of accidents involving oil tankers happen every year. Most accidents bring about severe ecological damage, as a large quantity of oil is discharged in a relatively small area (0.121 million tonnes). The causes of accidents are due to collision, grounding, hull failure, fire/explosion.

Bilge and Fuel Oils:
All shipping needs to pump out bilge water which invariably contains oil from the ships engines. Individually, the quantity of oil released may be small, but since all shipping contributes, the total quantity of oil entering the sea is considerable (0.252 million tons).

Dry Docking:
All ships, including oil tankers, require periodic docking for servicing, repairs, cleaning the hull and so on. It is essential that all oil is removed from the cargo compartments of tankers and from the empty fuel tanks of all ships to avoid the risk of explosion from petroleum gases.

Situation has now improved and the quantity of oil reaching the sea in association with dry docking has been reduced from 30,000 t (1981) to 4000 t (1989)