It is not particularly difficult to see why the costs associated with the processes of recovery and post-recovery movement and storage of crude oil is such an astronomically costly exercise. What, all too frequently, are the devastating effects of oil spills, makes clear just why oil companies ‘shell out’ astronomical sums of money to optimise safeguards against oil ‘spills’. As has become increasingly apparent to even the casual observer, the consequences of these spills are, frequently, not only financially costly but environmentally ruinous. Fixing the damage can mean the end of the line for oil companies not adequately prepared to foot the bills associated with cleanups as well as compensation and there have been instances in which the costs must be measured not by one-time payments, but in costs that can extend over a considerable period of time, arising sometimes, out of protracted litigation.
