Spill List

List from 2007 showing top 12 oil spills. A few things seem noteworthy. Most of the top spills are tanker spills--the Exxon  (XOM) Valdez tanker spill from '89 isn't even close to getting on the list. The only rig-related spill in the top 12 is the #2 Pemex incident in 1979-80 that spilled 140 million gallons.

It is currently estimated that the BP Deepwater rig in the Gulf has spilled between 500,000-1 million gal/day. At the high end of estimates and assuming 30 days of spill thus far, the BP spill should enter the top 10 soon.

Note also that most recent prior top spill occured in 1994 in Russian.

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