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Exxon Valdez nears end Infamous ship bound for India scrap yard as work begins on new SeaRiver tanker Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
Work began recently in a Philadelphia shipyard on a new double-hull oil tanker to carry Alaska North Slope crude oil for ExxonMobil.
But news of another ship that once hauled Alaska oil for Exxon swamped the Philly story.
Multiple media outlets including TradeWinds, which covers the shipping industry, reported March 20 that the ship formerly known as the Exxon Valdez had been sold for scrap. The reports indicated the vessel, now known as the Oriental Nicety, would go to ship breakers in India.
The Exxon Valdez, of course, sailed into infamy with its involvement in the 1989 shipwreck and oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
Cutting steel plates The grounding of the single-hull Exxon Valdez on Bligh Reef, which released nearly 11 million gallons of crude into Prince William Sound, led to sweeping reforms for the tanker industry. One requirement was a phase-out of single-hull tankers.
The transition to double-hull ships already has been accomplished for the fleet that carries oil between the Alaska port of Valdez and West Coast refineries. Two of the North Slope’s top oil producers, ConocoPhillips and BP, each built four double-hull tankers.
Now, 23 years after the oil spill, work has begun on the first of two new double-hull tankers for SeaRiver Maritime Inc., ExxonMobil’s U.S. shipping affiliate.
Aker Philadelphia Shipyard is building the tankers, and the company announced that construction started March 7 on the first ship.
“Since the shipbuilding contract was signed in September 2011, engineering, planning, and procurement work have been under way,” Aker Philadelphia said in a press release. “After a small ceremony in the shipyard’s Fabrication Shop the cutting of the steel plates began. These plates will become part of the double hull of the tanker that protects the cargo tanks.”
Aker Philadelphia’s chief executive, Kristian Rokke, said the tanker construction project “is an important demonstration of the power of American manufacturing.”
Rokke continued: “Today we used the shipyard’s brand new plasma cutting machine, which was manufactured in Wisconsin, to cut steel plate that was rolled right here in Pennsylvania. Thousands of welding and fabrication hours will be spent in Philadelphia making this plate, and many more like it, into a quality vessel to move Alaskan oil.”
Replacing old ships Jack Buono, president of Houston-based SeaRiver, said the new Liberty Class tankers represent “our ongoing commitment to safe and reliable marine transportation. The robust design incorporates important technologies to meet some of the most demanding marine conditions in the world.”
SeaRiver currently operates double-hull tankers in the Alaska trade, but these ships are old. The new tankers will replace the Kodiak and the Sierra, both built in the late 1970s.
SeaRiver has said construction of the new tankers is a $400 million project.
The tankers will be of a size known as Aframax in the shipping industry. Each will be 820 feet long with a carrying capacity of 730,000 barrels of crude — more than the current average daily production of North Slope oil.
They’re scheduled for completion in 2014.
Names have not been announced for the tankers.
Demise of Exxon Valdez The Exxon Valdez wasn’t inherently a bad ship.
It was “a typical modern tankship” built and put into service about two years before the spill, according to an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
But the single-hull vessel was no match for the reef. Cargo tanks down nearly the entire length of the 987-foot ship were ripped open.
The ship stayed afloat, and most of its oil was transferred to another tanker. But Congress banished it from Alaska.
The captain, Joe Hazelwood, wasn’t in the wheelhouse at the time of the grounding. Authorities alleged he was alcohol impaired.
Exxon renamed the tanker Exxon Mediterranean and it worked elsewhere in the world.
The American Bureau of Shipping indicates the tanker underwent conversion to an ore carrier in 2007. The owner is listed as Hong Kong Bloom Shipping Co. That firm, a unit of marine transportation giant Cosco, bought the ship in 2007, TradeWinds reported.
ABS records indicate the ship was renamed Dong Fang Ocean in December 2008, and then Oriental Nicety in April 2011.
The ship was sold for scrap for about $15.8 million, TradeWinds said, quoting GMS, the world’s largest cash buyer of ships for “recycling.”
The former Exxon Valdez is not alone in heading, reportedly, for the scrap yard. The maritime industry website coltoncompany.com reported Feb. 27 that the S/R Long Beach, sister ship of the Exxon Valdez, had been sold for recycling in China.
Petroleum News reported in its June 21, 2009, issue that the S/R Long Beach, in April of that year, made an unusual delivery of Alaska crude to a port in the Gulf of Mexico. The single-hull tanker was facing a mandatory retirement date.
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