On 16 March 2011, due to the risky navigation of trying to achieve the minimal allowed clearance of Nightingale Island of 10 nmi, and due to human error in navigation reducing the actual clearance to zero, the ship went aground off Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, in the South Atlantic, at 4 am while on a voyage from Santos, Brazil to China with a cargo of soya beans.

More than 800 tons of fuel oil leaked from the ship and coated some 20,000 northern rockhopper penguins.

There is an area of soya bean deposits and reduced sealife around the wreck due to the cargo of soya bean removing the oxygen from the water.

[3] In February 2013, a lifeboat from the Oliva washed up on a beach in the Coorong National Park in south-east South Australia.

The lifeboat was later put on display adjacent to the former Cape Jaffa lighthouse in Kingston SE, South Australia, where it forms part of the town's National Trust maritime display.