De flesta av de incidenter som inträffade i Öresund var resultatet av en kombination av handlingar och omständigheter. Orsaker och bidragande orsaker var mänskliga, väder/sjö och andra relaterade faktorer, där den mänskliga faktorn dominerade. Kostnaden för krav från tredje man i det värsta tänkbara scenariet för ett oljeutsläpp i Öresund uppskattades till $300 miljoner, den genomsnittliga riskkostnaden till $223.500. Siffran inkluderar inte utsläpp vid lastning, lossning och därmed sammanhängande aktiviteter. Förslag till förbättring av säkerheten för människor och skydd av den marina miljön i området finns med. Det innefattar även förbättringar av databaserna och navigationshjälpmedel, bättre kontroll och uppföljning av navigation, obligatoriskt fartygsrapporteringssystem, gratis lotsning, trafikseparering och ATC-system för fartyg.

Öresund is one of the areas in the world with most ship movements. More than 40,000 ships pass through the sound in the direction north-south or the opposite every year. Other ships/ferries frequently cross the sound in the direction east-west or west-east. The ships carry goods and/or passengers in huge volumes. Since Öresund is a quite narrow sound with a difficult navigation situation, many risks of different kinds are at hand. The Öresund area is also a heavily populated area with many people living at the sound or quite near it. The consequences of an oil spill could therefore be severe to people, the environment and property. The objectives of the study are to identify and analyse marine oil spill events in Öresund, to analyse the causes of those events, to estimate potential third-party claims for oil spill events in Öresund and to suggest some safety-increasing actions concerning oil spills in Öresund. The study is confined to the risks of oil and oil products, including bunker oil, of marine transport and related activities in the Öresund area. Furthermore, when considering the claims, the cost of damage to/loss of ship and goods is not studied. Only third-party claims are considered. Following a brief discussion of risk analysis and oil spills, a number of studies of risks in Öresund are presented. Then a description and characterization of the Öresund maritime situation is conducted. After that statistics on accidents and incidents in Öresund are collected and structured, and marine events and the causes of oil spills are analysed. Since statistics from Öresund are limited, world statistics on major oil spills and their claims are gathered and applied to the Öresund situation as well as oil spill statistics from the Baltic Sea. A recent oil spill accident, Baltic Carrier/Tern, which occurred on 29 March 2001 off the southern coast of Denmark, is used as illustration. Finally, different safety-increasing actions are discussed and suggested.