Marine oil spill pollution causes and governance: A case study of Sanchi tanker collision and explosion

With the uneven oil distribution worldwide and the growing dependency on oil across countries, tanker transportation has gained increasing predominance in oil trade. However, as a dangerous and highly polluting branch of the maritime industry, oil tankers cannot be underestimated in terms of harm of their oil spills. In recent decades, although oil tanker spill accidents have decreased in number, the hazards of their pollution remain. The Sanchi ship accident in 2018 is a typical example. It is of value to explore how to locate the accident causes and propose effective measures to reduce such accidents. This article takes the Sanchi collision and explosion accident as the subject of study and systematically analyzes main factors of the accident using the fault tree analysis method, with strategies for future tanker management proposed. As shown in results, the factors that contributed to the oil tanker accident are quite complicated, with human factors playing a major part structurally. In addition, management, environmental and ship factors also played a part. Finally, corresponding governance strategies are proposed based on the structural relationships between the factors. The research in this article is of guiding significance for shipping companies to reduce tanker oil spills related to ship collision and acts as an important basis for water transportation administrations to make emergency decisions for such tanker oil spills.