Analysis of past marine oil spill rates and trends for future contingency planning

Analyses of thirty years of US and international marine oil spill data have revealed that spillage rates have generally decreased despite overall increases in oil production and transportation (Etkin, 2001). At the same time, occasional large spills ─ along with increasing expectations of effective spill response ─ have necessitated complex contingency planning for increasingly rare high-impact events. Past oil spill trends for vessels from 1985-2000 and potential future spill rates in light of improvements implementation of double hulls on tankers and bunker tanks are analyzed with regard to future contingency planning needs in the US. A methodology for determining theoretical and most-likely worst-case oil spill scenarios for contingency planning for ports will be described.