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This study assesses the impact of EU regulation 1726/2003 restricting the use of single-hull tankers in favour of double-hull tankers, seen as being safer, by comparing the additional economic costs induced and the expected diminution in the number of oil spills. It emerges that this regulation is of positive benefit for Europeans but results in shifting the risk of catastrophe onto the other regions of the world. Worldwide application of this regulation would permit a significant reduction in the risk of oil spills by 2015. However the net social economic impact would be negative and would probably remain so even if the valuation attached to the average damage caused by oil spills adopted in this study(euros700 million and euros1,5billion) were significantly increased.