Images of crude oil on the surface of the water and covering rocks in North and South Haven, following the Sea Empress oil spill on 16 February 1996.
The dispersal agents applied to the oil at sea had created a thick, stable, toxic emulsion with a consistency similar to vaseline.

The Sea Empress was en route to the Texaco oil refinery near Pembroke when she became grounded on mid-channel rocks at St. Ann's Head. Over the course of a week, she spilt 72,000 tons of crude oil into the sea. The spill occurred within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park – one of Europe's most important and sensitive wildlife and marine conservation areas. It was Britain's third largest oil spillage and the twelfth largest in the world at the time.