Sea Empress
| History | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Name: | Sea Empress |
| Owner: | Oriental Ocean Shipping |
| Builder: |
 Spain
|
| Acquired: | 2010 |
| Status: | Bulk carrier |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 147,273 DWT |
| Length: | 274.3 m (899.93 ft) |
| Beam: | 43.2 m (141.73 ft) |
| Draft: | 17.02 m (55.84 ft) |
| Installed power: | 13,475 kW (18,070.27 hp) |
| Propulsion: | direct-drive diesel, single propeller |
| Capacity: | 164,156 m3 (1,003,035.33 imp bbl) |
The MV Sea Empress was a single-hull oil tanker that ran aground at the entrance to the Milford Haven harbour on the southwest coast of Wales in February 1996. The ensuing oil spill, Britain's third largest oil spillage and the twelfth largest in the world at the time, devastated a considerable area of local coastline and killed many birds, and continued to affect the Pembrokeshire coast for years afterwards.
On the evening of 15 February 1996 the Sea Empress was entering the mouth of the Cleddau Estuary on her way into Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire to deposit its oil cargo at the Texaco oil refinery. Sailing against the outgoing tide, at 20:07 UTC the ship was pushed off its course by the current, and hit rocks in the middle of the channel, which punctured her starboard hull causing oil to pour out into the bay.
Over the first few days of the disaster an estimated 73,000 tonnes out of the ship's 130,000 tonne cargo of North Sea crude oil was spilt, most of which spread along either the shoreline of Milford Haven waterway or the coastline to the south. This caused an enormous amount of environmental and aesthetic damage to the coastline and its marine life in an area which lies within the protection of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.
The most visible effect of the spill was seen in the large number of birds covered in oil that were shown on television and in newspapers. Amongst the birds affected were guillemots, razorbills and the worst affected bird, the common scoter duck. 83% of the birds affected were common scoter birds, and it is estimated that 5,000 of the 15,000 population in the area were killed. The RSPB set up a temporary bird hospital in Milford Haven to try to treat as many birds as possible. This centre is now a storage area but in the aftermath of the Sea Empress disaster it became a hive of activity where many birds were showered and cleaned as best as possible. Unfortunately the life expectancy of a cleaned Guillemot or Razorbill that was oiled once it was let back into the sea was a very short 9 days. Members of the public also helped rescue the birds. It was later revealed in a study by the British Trust for Ornithology that the average survival time for a rescued oiled Auk (Razorbill or Guillemot) was seven days.
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Wikipedia