On January 6, 2018, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Sanchi collided with the Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship CF Crystal about160 nautical miles east of the Yangtze River Estuary. Sanchi was entirely on fire after the collision. After drifting southeast for 8 days under the combined action of wind and current, it sank in the East China Sea on January 14, with the crude oil and condensate oil it carried leaking into the sea. In view of the major incident, rapid forecast of the polluted area of the spill directly serves the protection of marine ecology and integrated marine management.

Unlike previous crude oil spills at home and abroad, Sangi was loaded with 136,000 tons of condensate oil and nearly 2,000 tons of crude oil, which made it extremely difficult to analyze and forecast the impact of the spill. Based on the Ocean Forecast System (OFS) independently developed by the First Institute of Oceanography of the Ministry of Natural Resources (FIO, MNR), the research team led by Qiao Fangli forecast the pollution probability in the impacted area with reference to different properties of the leaked oil, considering the movement and diffusion of the spill under the combined action of wind field, Stokes drift of waves, and currents, as well as the evaporation, dissolution, emulsification and other weathering processes of oil (Qiao et al., Science of the Total Environment, 2019; doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.255). The result shows that, due to the rapid evaporation rate of condensate oil, the impacted area is confined to regions within 100 kilometers around the location of the shipwreck. Due to the complex circulation system there, the crude oil may not only affect the East China Sea and reach the Okinawa Islands but also enter the waters near the Kuroshio Extension in the North Pacific Ocean with the fast-flowing Kuroshio, and some leaked oil is likely to enter the Sea of Japan along the Tsushima Strait. The forecast result was published on Nature on January 24, 2018. The forecast result of the short-term model is confirmed by the telemetry of marine satellites. Meanwhile, the forecast arrival time of leaked oil in the Ryukyu Island Chain is basically consistent with the time observed, which indicates that China's capability in short-term and long-term forecast of oil spills and other incidents is strong enough to provide direct scientific and technological support for the protection of marine ecology and marine management.

The research team released the Ocean Forecast System (OFS) for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road to the international community on December 10, 2018 upon the invitation of the IOC Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific (WESTPAC). By comparing the long-term forecast result and the observed result using the international standard test method (IVTT), it is demonstrated that the OFS is in the leading position in the world. The OFS has accurately forecast a series of maritime incidents and provided scientific basis for management decisions. For example, it rapidly forecast the scope of search and rescue after the shipwreck near Phuket, Thailand on July 5, 2018 upon the invitation of the Thai government and with the approval of the Ministry of Natural Resources. The forecast result was confirmed by the actual salvage.