International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited - (ITOPF)

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About

ITOPF is a non-profit making organisation, funded by the vast majority of the world's shipowners. We devote considerable effort to a wide range of technical services, the most important of which is responding to oil spills. Our technical advisers have attended on-site at over 450 spills in more than 85 countries.

Since 1974 ITOPF has maintained a database of oil spills from tankers, combined carriers and barges, which is amongst the most comprehensive of its kind. It is used to generate statistics on numbers and sizes of spills, and to identify causes of spills. Long-term trends can be analysed. This has proved particularly useful for assessing the risk of oil spills for contingency planning and for evaluating the possible consequences of changes in tanker design and operation. The volume of oil spilt each year varies enormously as a result of a small number of major incidents. The vast majority of spills are small (< 7 tonnes) and contribute relatively little to the total amount spilt each year. There are many other sources of oil in the marine environment and accidental spills from tankers contribute a relatively small proportion of the annual total volume of oil that enters the world's sea and oceans.