Oil Spills Fast Facts

2. April 20, 2010 – An explosion occurs on board the BP contracted Transocean Ltd. Deepwater Horizon oil rig, spilling approximately 210 million gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

3. June 3, 1979 – Ixtoc 1, an exploratory well, blows out, spilling 140 million gallons of oil into the Bay of Campeche off the coast of Mexico.

4. March 2, 1992 – A Fergana Valley oil well in Uzbekistan blows out, spilling 88 million gallons of oil.

5. February 1983 – An oil well in the Nowruz Oil Field in Iran begins spilling oil. One month later, an Iraqi air attack increases the amount of oil spilled to approximately 80 million gallons of oil.

6. August 6, 1983 – The Castillo de Bellver, a Spanish tanker, catches fire near Cape Town, South Africa, spilling more than 78 million gallons of oil.

7. March 16, 1978 – The Amoco Cadiz tanker runs aground near Portsall, France, spilling more than 68 million gallons of oil.

8. November 10, 1988 – The tanker Odyssey breaks apart during a storm, spilling 43.1 million gallons of oil northeast of Newfoundland, Canada.

9. July 19, 1979 – The Atlantic Empress and the Aegean Captain tankers collide near Trinidad and Tobago. The Atlantic Empress spills 42.7 million gallons of oil. On August 2, the Atlantic Empress spills an additional 41.5 million gallons near Barbados while being towed away.

January 3, 2013 – The Justice Department announces that Transocean Deepwater Inc. has agreed to plead guilty to a violation of the Clean Water Act and pay $1.4 billion in fines.

February 25, 2013 – The trial to determine how much BP owes in civil damages under the Clean Water Act begins. The first phase of the trial will focus on the cause of the blowout.

September 19, 2013 – In federal court in New Orleans, Halliburton pleads guilty to destroying test results that investigators had sought as evidence. The company is given the maximum fine of $200,000 on the charge.

September 30, 2013 – The second phase of the civil trial over the oil spill begins. This part focuses on how much oil was spilled and if BP was negligent because of its lack of preparedness.

December 18, 2013 – Kurt Mix, a former engineer for BP, is convicted of destroying evidence for deleting text messages about the oil spill.

September 4, 2014 – A federal judge in Louisiana finds that BP was “grossly negligent” in the run-up to the 2010 disaster, which could quadruple the penalties it would have to pay under the Clean Water Act to more than $18 billion. Judge Carl Barbier of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana also apportions blame for the spill, with “reckless” BP getting two thirds of it. He says the other two main defendants in the more than 3,000 lawsuits filed in the spill’s wake, Transocean and Halliburton, were found to be “negligent.”

January 20-February 2, 2015 – The final phase of the trial to determine BP’s fines takes place. The ruling is expected in a few months.

CNN