The prestige oil spill

Abstract

The accident on November 13, 2002 of the Prestige oil tanker, transporting 77,000 tons of a heavy fuel oil, 50 km off the Galicia coast (NW Spain), and its sinking 200 km offshore after an oil leakage for 6 days started a massive oil spill, affecting more than 800 km of the NW Spanish coast and even some areas of SW France, including the Galicia coast, one of the prime producers of commercial shellfish worldwide. An operational forecasting system, encompassing overflight information, meteorological and oceanographic data collection, and numerical models, was implemented for predicting oil spill trajectories and providing decision makers with technical assessment to respond to the oil spill. This was essential because the massive spreading of the oil made it difficult to respond with the conventional tools. The high density and viscosity of the oil led to the formation of stable emulsions with water, which were broken …