A Study of Oil Spill at Marine Companies: Factors and Effects

Shipping activity is growing rapidly due to the effectiveness of marine transports in fulfilling the high demand of a global trade. The oil spill in the ocean is a serious issue due to its adverse effects, especially in the marine environment and the economy of the country. The oil pollution was caused by several factors, including human error, negligence, technical error, equipment failure, system failure, failure in implementation of required safety procedures, incompetency of crews and natural disaster. The aim of this research is to identify the main factor contributing to the oil spill as a preliminary study to prevent an unnecessary oil spill incident. Questionnaires survey was conducted on staff of oil and gas company and a maritime government agency in Lumut, Perak, Malaysia. The result shows the most significant factor of the oil spill is from human error which is resulted from in compliance of the standard operating procedure such as lack of technical skill (ship handling, operating system), communication failure between staff, fatigue and poor to follow rules and regulation at work place. Meanwhile the second part of this research is to identify which of these three factors of independent variables can be assumed as the most effect variables towards the dependent variables (environmental and economic) by measuring the strength and relationship between the variables. The result indicates natural disaster the highest positive relationship (r = 0.778) towards environmental effect and, human error indicates the strongest relationship (r = 0.660) for economic factors that effect to the oil spill.