16 Years After Exxon Valdez, ExxonMobil Plans To Go Double-Hull - Sort Of

"Sixteen years after one of its ships wrecked on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, spilling millions of gallons of oil, Exxon Mobil has cobbled together a partial plan to replace its fleet of single-hulled oil tankers with double-hulled vessels. The crux of the plan will see Exxon take over two aging double-hulled tankers now hauling North Slope crude oil for BP. Exxon plans to take the two tankers, the Kenai and the Tonsina, to a Singapore shipyard for an extensive refurbishment.

Exxon's shipping subsidiary, Houston-based SeaRiver Maritime Inc., currently runs four tankers between Valdez and West Coast refineries. All the ships are single hulls.

Exxon, with the other major oil companies in Alaska, Conoco Phillips and BP, is under time pressure to comply with federal law requiring that all oil tankers be double-hulled. The law generally requires double hulls by 2015, but many ships now in service have much earlier expiration dates based on their age and other factors. Exxon has one Alaska tanker facing retirement in October and another in March. The idea behind double hulls is that they might reduce the size of spills should a ship run aground.

SeaRiver spokesman Ray Botto said his company's purchase of the two BP ships is an interim step in a broader but still incomplete plan to upgrade the company's Alaska fleet. The plan could include building new, double-hulled tankers, he said. Exxon is lagging well behind the other two majors, Conoco and BP, which together are spending about $2 billion to build double-hulled tankers. Since 2001, Conoco has put four such ships into service and BP two, with each company expecting more new tankers in coming months."

EDIT

http://www.adn.com/front/story/6685166p-6571884c.html

The Coast Guard - and the American Bureau of Shipping (the maritime insurance carrier's engineering body) were screwing around with requiring double hulls 40 years ago.

Talk about the political muscle of Big Oil.

That's when I was a slim, young Coast Guard Ensign ;)

n/t

Exxon, of the Big Three (BP and Shell being the other two), has always been the most flagrant and flouting of the laws. That's because its a descendant of the original Standard Oil main branch, Standard Oil New Jersey. It has inherited to a certain extent the brazen contempt that Standard Oil itself maintained.