The Tasman Spirit is a Greek registered oil tanker

Oil tanker

An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a merchant ship designed for the bulk transport of oil. There are two basic types of oil tankers: the crude tanker and the product tanker. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries...

. The tanker was launched in February 1979 and was formerly called the Mabini and Kenko.

On July 28, 2003 she ran aground near the city of Karachi

Karachi

Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...

. Over 12,000 tons of oil spilled into the Arabian Sea

Arabian Sea

The Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape Guardafui in northeastern Somalia and Kanyakumari in India...

 in what is considered by some to be the largest environmental disaster in Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

's history. According to the IUCN 16 kilometres of coastline has been polluted.

The ship's insurer offered 10 million rupees (about $180,000 US dollars in 2003) in compensation to the Karachi port authorities, and agreed to pay all cleaning expenses.