FACTBOX - Key facts from Valdez and Prestige oil spills
Date: 21-Nov-02
Country: USA
- The Prestige is carrying 500,000 barrels of petroleum and has already lost 73,000 barrels. Valdez held 1.26 million barrels and spilled 257,000 barrels.
- Oil from the Valdez spill heavily coated 200 miles of Alaskan coast. The Prestige has blackened the coast of Galicia and has so far left a 10-mile (16 kilometer) long slick.
- Exxon says it paid $2.2 billion in clean up costs and $300 million to Alaskans for the Valdez disaster.
- The Prestige spill is in rough waters with 16-foot (five meter) waves, while the Valdez spilled into the calm waters of the Prince William Sound.
- The Prestige is carrying heavy fuel oil while the Valdez was carrying a light crude oil. The fuel oil has mixed with water into patches and is spreading, while light crude oil evaporates quicker, experts said.
- Prestige is chartered by small Swiss-based Russian oil trader Crown Resources. The Valdez was owned by then Exxon Corp., now Exxon Mobil Corp. the world's largest oil company.
- The International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPCF) has allotted $154.3 million in damages for the Prestige spill. Crown Resources was also required to carry $25.5 million in insurance. The Valdez did not have access to IOPCF funds because the United States is not a member of the organization.
- The Exxon Valdez was four years old while the Prestige is 26 years old.
- Both the Prestige and the Valdez were single-hulled tankers, which the U.N.'s International Maritime Organization and U.S. Congress have passed regulations to phase out by 2010 to 2015.
- The Spanish government this week said it would push for an accelerated ban on single hulled vessels.
