Global oil tanker spills by volume 1970-2023

The amount of oil spilled from oil tankers worldwide was approximately 2,000 metric tons in 2023. This was a notable decrease compared to the previous year. In 2018, a total of 116 thousand metric tons of oil was leaked from oil tanker incidents, the largest quantity leaked in 24 years. Most of the quantity leaked in 2018 was attributable to the incident involving the MT Sanchi in the East China Sea. Since the 1970's and 1980's, the average annual amount of oil spilled from tankers has decreased significantly.