“There are oil spills in Singapore’s waterways?” is the very question I get when I told my other course mates that I would be doing my blog on the topic of oil spills in Singapore, which came as a surprise to me that they were not aware of this environmental problem in Singapore. Oil spills have always been a major environmental issue in Singapore yet not much attention has been brought to it and locals are not very aware and familiar with this issue.

And so the answer to that question, as you might have already guessed right, is yes. Singapore is one of the busiest port and also one of the largest oil refining centres in the world. Our port makes use of The Straits of Singapore, which is a sea channel that is 105 kilometres long and 16 kilometres wide, connecting the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The Straits of Singapore lies on the shipping route of the Asia-Pacific region linking West Asia to Europe, making it one of the busiest sea-lanes in the world. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the Straits is particularly prone to oil spills. It is one of the world’s hot spots for oil spills and Singapore and Malaysia alone have been adversely affected by at least 39 spills of 34 tons or more since 1960. Oil content in Singapore waterways is generally higher in regions near shipping lanes, refineries, ports and industrial sites.

However, it should be brought up that oil spills found in Singapore waterways may not necessarily be due to accidents that happened in the region of Singaporean waters but could also be due to oil spills that occurred in other regions but get washed into Singapore waters.

The worst oil spill in Singapore’s history dated back to October 15, 1997. Two tankers, namely Orapin Global and Evoikos, collided near the region of the Singapore Port Limit. A total of 28, 463 tons of oil were spilled from Evoikos, while the Orapin Global was fortunately empty at that time. The collision resulted in the staining of Singapore waters, with oil slicks that came to as wide as 50m. Furthermore, mangroves and coral reefs in the region of the Raffles Lighthouse were severely impacted. This 1997 Evoikos spill took a span of three weeks to be thoroughly cleaned up.

Adding on, the most recent case of oil spill in Singapore was in February 2014, where a containership and a chemical tanker collided in the Singapore Strait, resulting in a spillage of approximately 80 metric tons of bunker fuel. It was in fact, the third ship collision resulting in an oil spill that occurred within a short span of just two weeks in the Singapore waters.