Global spillsaustralia

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GlobalSPILL and safety ABN

On this page, you can find all our data, visualizations, and writing relating to oil spills. Specifically, this refers to oil spills from tankers – container ships transporting oil – where consistent, high-quality global data is available.

GlobalSpill perth

Emergency signs indicate the location of, or directions to emergency facilities (exits, first aid, safety equipment etc). These signs feature a white symbol and/or text on a green background.

Spill control

Tracking non-tanker oil spills is essential, but we are unaware of any global, updated databases that include this. Filling this gap would be critical to global environmental data and monitoring.

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GlobalSpill DB4G

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But not all oil spills come from tankers. They can also come from other sites, such as offshore oil rigs and damaged pipelines. The world's largest (and most well-known) event was Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. This disaster was caused by an explosion in a drilling rig. The US Government estimates that 4.9 million barrels of oil were released (equivalent to around 700,000 tonnes).

The number of oil spills and the quantity of oil that is spilled from tankers has fallen substantially in recent decades.1

These spills are most common in marine environments but can also occur on land. They can have disastrous consequences for local ecosystems, and be expensive due to the loss of oil and the costs involved in their clean-up.