Oil spills happen when people make mistakes or are careless and cause an oil tanker to leak oil into the ocean. There are a few more ways an oil spill can occur. Equipment breaking down may cause an oil spill. If the equipment breaks down, the tanker may get stuck on shallow land. When they start to drive the tanker again, they can put a hole in the tanker causing it to leak oil.

When countries are at war, one country may decide to dump gallons of oil into the other country’s oceans.

Terrorists may cause an oil spill because they will dump oil into a country’s ocean. Many terrorists will do this because they are trying to get the country’s attention, or they are trying to make a point to a country.

Illegal dumpers are people that will dump crude oil into the oceans because they do not want to spend money on decomposing their waste oil. Because they won’t spend money on breaking up the oil (decomposing it) they will dump oil into the oceans, which is illegal.

Natural disasters (like hurricanes) may cause an oil spill, too. If a hurricane was a couple of miles away, the winds from the hurricane could cause the oil tanker to flip over, pouring oil out.