The Nowruz oil field, in the Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, was the site of several 1983 oil spill

Oil spill

An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially marine areas, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is mostly used to describe marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters...

s.

One spill was initially caused by a tanker hitting a platform. In March, 1983, the platform was attacked by Iraqi helicopters and the spill caught fire. The Iran–Iraq War prevented technicians from capping the well until September 18, 1983. Eleven people were killed during the capping.

A separate spill occurred when Iraqi helicopters attacked a nearby platform in March 1983. The well was capped in May, 1985. Nine men were killed during the capping. Approximately 733,000 barrels (100,000 tonne

Tonne

The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...

s) of oil were spilled because of this incident.

Overall, 80 million gallons (about 260,000 tonnes) of oil were spilled.