The committee which looked into the scientific and technological aspects of the Torrey Canyon disaster in 1967 recommended that an assessment should be made of the probable future frequency of large-scale oil pollution along the United Kingdom coastline so that the scale of effort necessary to meet such threats could be determined. The Defence Operational Analysis Establishment of the Ministry of Defence, which has considerable experience in the collection and analysis of large amounts of data, was considered best suited to undertake such an assignment.