Qualla: VLCC Metula Oil Spill

VLCC Metula Oil Spill: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

She was a thousand feet of steel moving at nearly full speed through one of the narrowest, most treacherous funnels in the Strait of Magellan. On the evening of August 9, 1974, the supertanker Metula was threading the First Narrows when she cut the corner too sharply and struck a rocky shoal at roughly 14.5 knots, grinding to a halt with her forward compartments torn open. Crude oil began pouring into the strait almost immediately. It was the first time a Very Large Crude Carrier had been involved in a major spill, and the wreck would leave marks on this lonely coastline that outlasted nearly everyone who responded to it.

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VLCC Metula Oil Spill: A Wrong Turn in a Dangerous Channel

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Metula was an enormous ship, 1,067 feet long with a deadweight capacity of 206,000 tons, sailing from Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia with more than 196,000 tons of light Arabian crude bound for Chile's national oil company at Quintero. The First Narrows is wider than three kilome...

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VLCC Metula Oil Spill: Oil on the Shore

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In all, the Metula released roughly 47,000 tonnes of light crude and between 3,000 and 4,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. The savage southern seas churned it into a thick water-in-oil emulsion, a foamy mousse that drifted onto the beaches of northern Tierra del Fuego. Then came the ...

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VLCC Metula Oil Spill: The Toll on the Living

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The wildlife had no such patience to spare. A single survey on September 14 and 15, 1974 counted hundreds of dead birds heavily fouled with oil along one stretch of coast: 408 cormorants, 66 Magellanic penguins, 23 ducks, and 84 seagulls. By the following February, estimates of t...

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VLCC Metula Oil Spill: A Year Without Fish

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For the fishermen of the strait, the damage was immediate and personal. The contaminated waters drove them elsewhere, cutting them off from the grounds where they hunted sea bass between seasons of king crab. The fishery was effectively unusable for a full year, and the quality o...

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