The Northwest Pacific region, covering the four member states namely, People’s Republic of China, Japan, Republic of Korea and Russian Federation, has been severely exposed to oil and HNS spills due to its high shipping density and high levels of industrial and economic growth and became a hotspot worldwide.

The information on oil and HNS spill incidents occurred in the NOWPAP region (covering the marine environment and coastal zones of People’s Republic of China, Japan, Republic of Korea and Russian Federation, ranging from about 121°E to 145°E longitude and from approximately 33°N to 55°N latitude) has been compiled by NOWPAP MERRAC since year 1990 based on the agreement made at the 1st NOWPAP Forum Meeting.

From 1990 to 1997, the information of spill incidents were collected with quantity over 50 tons and as decided at the 5th MERRAC Focal Points Meeting, the information started to collect with spillage over 10 tons since 1998. MERRAC continuously updates these information as one of the routine tasks on a regular basis based upon the inputs from the member states. In addition to the list of oil spill incidents, the list of HNS spill incidents has been updated on MERRAC website as the 10th MERRAC Focal Points Meeting agreed to add separately.


 Oil spill incidents                                                                             HNS spill incidents

Until now, 372 oil spills and 49 HNS spill incidents over 10 tons in total have been occurred from 1990 to 2019 in the NOWPAP region as seen in the table below.

Particularly in 2019, 19 oil spill incidents with the spillage over 10 tons and 1 of HNS spill incidents were occurred in the NOWPAP region. Total oil spillage was 190 tons. The incidents were from fishing boat (5), cargo ship (3), tanker (1) and others (42). The types of the incidents are sinking (3), collision (1), grounding (2), unknown (3) and others (42). In addition, 1 HNS spill incident was occurred in the NOWPAP region, from chemical tanker.