MV Argo Merchant was a Liberian-flagged oil tanker built by Howaldtswerke in Hamburg, Germany in 1953, most noted for running aground and subsequent sinking southeast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, causing one of the largest marine oil spills in history. Throughout the vessel's troubled past, she was involved in more than a dozen major shipping incidents including two other groundings; once in Indonesia while named Permina Samudra III, and again in Sicily while named Vari; and a collision in Japan.