Supertanker Oil Cleanup?

My wife was telling me of an incident she heard about today. It appears there was some kind of Saudi oil spill somewhat like this one 20 years ago. Their solution at that time was to fill supertankers with as much oil and some water using skimmers, so they could salvage and then refine most of the spill. The idea I guess is to do this quickly before the oil balls up sinks and kills everything or most things under the sea. But as long as it is on the surface it appears the majority might be able to be skimmed off and processed in some ways by storing it temporarily in supertankers before separating and refining it.