Qualla: Venpet-Venoil Collision

Venpet-Venoil Collision: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

They were built in the same shipyard, owned by the same company, crewed by sailors from the same country, and on the morning of December 16, 1977, they collided in dense fog off the South African coast. The Venpet and Venoil -- sister supertankers, each over 330,000 deadweight tonnes, constructed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Nagasaki barely three months apart -- met on reciprocal courses approximately 40 kilometers south of Plettenberg Bay. The bow of the fully laden Venoil struck the side of the empty Venpet, tearing a hole 14 meters deep and 55 meters long. What followed was fire, oil, and a 160-kilometer slick that blackened 130 kilometers of South African coastline.

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Venpet-Venoil Collision: Two Ships, One Design

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Both tankers were born in Nagasaki in 1973, products of a shipbuilding boom driven by surging global demand for oil transport. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries began work on the Venoil in October 1972 and the Venpet in January 1973, completing them in March and June of that year at a ...

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Venpet-Venoil Collision: Fog and Failed Maneuvers

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On that December morning, the Venoil was headed for Halifax, Nova Scotia, carrying between 250,000 and 307,000 tonnes of crude oil loaded at Iran's Kharg Island terminal. The Venpet, running in ballast, was on the return trip to Kharg Island after unloading her cargo at Halifax. ...

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Venpet-Venoil Collision: Fire on the Water

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The collision ruptured the Venpet's forward fuel tank and two of the Venoil's crude oil storage tanks. Bunker oil and heavy crude poured into the sea and ignited. The total spill was estimated at between 26,600 and 30,500 tonnes, though some of the oil was consumed by the flames ...

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Venpet-Venoil Collision: Drifting and Recovery

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The burning, abandoned tankers drifted toward shore as their fires gradually died. Salvage teams towed them into the Agulhas Current to prevent grounding, using the powerful southwestward current to carry any further oil releases away from the coastline. The Venpet reached Algoa ...

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Venpet-Venoil Collision: Afterlives and Endings

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Neither ship survived long. The Venoil was renamed Resolute in 1981 and Opportunity in 1983 before being scrapped at Ulsan, South Korea, in October 1984 -- eleven years after her launch. The Venpet, renamed Alexander The Great in 1980, met a more violent end. In June 1984, while ...

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