The MV Sea Empress was a single-hull Suezmax oil tanker that ran aground at the entrance to the Milford Haven harbour on the southwest coast of Wales in February 1996.

Sailing against the outgoing tide, at 20:07 UTC the ship was pushed off its course by the current and hit rocks in the middle of the channel, which punctured her starboard hull causing oil to pour out into the bay.

[3][4] Over the first few days of the disaster, an estimated 73,000 tonnes out of the ship's 130,000-tonne cargo of North Sea crude oil was spilt, most of which spread along either the shoreline of Milford Haven waterway or the coastline to the south.

This caused an enormous amount of environmental and aesthetic damage to the coastline and its marine life in an area which lies within the protection of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

[7] The total cost of the cleanup operation was approximately £60 million[8][9] It took almost five years for the coastline to be fully cleaned up and restored by the Pembrokeshire Council, Texaco workers and subcontractors, and wildlife conservationists.