![]() On 13 November 2002, the Prestige was carrying 77,000 metric tons of two different grades of heavy fuel oil, crude #4. The French, Spanish and Portuguese governments refused to allow the Prestige to dock in their ports. It was classed by the American Bureau of Shipping and insured by the London P&I Club, a shipowners' mutual known as the London Club. The ship had a deadweight tonnage, or carrying capacity, of approximately 81,000 tons, a measurement that put it at the small end of the Aframax class of tankers, smaller than most carriers of crude oil but larger than most carriers of refined products. The Prestige was a 26-year-old Greek-operated, single- hulled oil tanker, officially registered in the Bahamas, but with a Liberian-registered single-purpose corporation as the owner. The overall damages awarded by the court in A Coruña in 2017 was just over €1.5bn, a figure confirmed by the Spanish Supreme Court in December 2018. The Spanish judgment is unlikely to be enforceable due to a UK judgment requiring any claims to be determined via arbitration under UK law. In January 2016 the Spanish Supreme Court held the London P&I Club liable for damages up to the amount of its overall cover for the shipowner for pollution of $1 billion. The 2012 trial of the Galicia regional High Court did not find the merchant shipping company, nor the insurer, the London P&I Club nor any Spanish government official, but only the Captain of the ship guilty and gave him a nine-month suspended sentence for disobedience. In 2007 the Southern District of New York dismissed a 2003 lawsuit by the Kingdom of Spain against the American Bureau of Shipping, the international classification society which had certified the Prestige as in compliance with rules and laws, because ABS was a "person" per the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage and exempt from direct liability for pollution damage. The amount of oil spilled was more than the Exxon Valdez incident and the toxicity was considered higher, because of the higher water temperatures. The spill is the largest environmental disaster in the history of both Spain and Portugal. The oil spill polluted 2300 kilometers (1429 miles) of coastline and more than one thousand beaches on the Spanish, French and Portuguese coast, as well as causing great harm to the local fishing industry. ![]() ![]() It is estimated that it spilled 60,000 tonnes or a volume of 67,000 m 3 (17.8 million US gal) of heavy fuel oil. The vessel subsequently sank on 19 November, about 210 kilometres (130 mi) from the coast of Galicia. During a storm, it burst a tank on 13 November, and French, Spanish, and Portuguese governments refused to allow the ship to dock. The Prestige oil spill occurred off the coast of Galicia, Spain in November 2002, caused by the sinking of the 26-year-old, structurally deficient oil tanker MV Prestige, carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil.
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