A double-hulled tanker refers to an oil tanker which has a double hull. They reduce the likelihood of leaks occurring compared to single-hulled tankers, and their ability to prevent or reduce oil spills led to double hulls being standardized for oil tankers and other types of ships including by the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships or MARPOL Convention. After the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster in Alaska in 1989, the US government required all new oil tankers built for use between US ports to be equipped with a full double hull.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster that made worldwide headlines in the spring of 1989 and occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The spill occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, 6 mi (9.7 km) west of Tatitlek, Alaska at 12:04 a.m. The tanker spilled approximately 10.8 million US gallons (260,000 bbl) of crude oil over the next few days.
The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) was passed by the 101st United States Congress and signed by President George H. W. Bush. It works to avoid oil spills from vessels and facilities by enforcing removal of spilled oil and assigning liability for the cost of cleanup and damage; requires specific operating procedures; defines responsible parties and financial liability; implements processes for measuring damages; specifies damages for which violators are liable; and establishes a fund for damages, cleanup, and removal costs. This statute has resulted in instrumental changes in the oil production, transportation, and distribution industries.
Joseph Jeffrey Hazelwood was an American sailor. He was the captain of Exxon Valdez during her 1989 oil spill. He was accused of being intoxicated which contributed to the disaster, but was cleared of this charge at his 1990 trial after witnesses testified that he was sober around the time of the accident. Hazelwood was convicted of a lesser charge, negligent discharge of oil, fined $50,000, and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service.
The Valdez Blockade was a 1993 protest by Cordova fishermen who blockaded the Valdez Narrows in an attempt to obtain funding for research and restoration efforts relating to decreasing yields of pink salmon and herring in Prince William Sound following the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. The fishermen were dissatisfied with the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee’s Council’s refusal to fund research efforts into the spill's effects on the fish. The blockade lasted three days, from August 20 to August 22. The blockade ended when Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, promised funding for salmon and herring research. Findings from these studies resulted in additional compensation from Exxon.
A double hull is a ship hull design and construction method where the bottom and sides of the ship have two complete layers of watertight hull surface: one outer layer forming the normal hull of the ship, and a second inner hull which is some distance inboard, typically by a few feet, which forms a redundant barrier to seawater in case the outer hull is damaged and leaks.
The MV Sea Empress was a single-hull Suezmax oil tanker that ran aground at the entrance to the Milford Haven harbour on the southwest coast of Wales in February 1996. The ensuing oil spill, Britain's third largest oil spillage and the 12th largest in the world at the time, devastated a considerable area of local coastline and killed many birds, and continued to affect the Pembrokeshire coast for years afterwards.
SeaRiver Maritime is a wholly owned subsidiary of ExxonMobil. The company was formed in the early 1990s by Exxon when it spun off its maritime operations into the new company following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.
Trident Seafoods is the largest seafood company in the United States, harvesting primarily wild-caught seafood in Alaska.
The Prestige oil spill occurred off the coast of Galicia, Spain in November 2002, caused by the sinking of the 26-year-old, structurally deficient oil tanker MV Prestige, carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. During a storm, it burst a tank on 13 November, and French, Spanish, and Portuguese governments refused to allow the ship to dock. The vessel subsequently sank on 19 November, about 210 kilometres (130 mi) from the coast of Galicia. It is estimated that it spilled 60,000 tonnes or a volume of 67,000 m3 (17.8 million US gal) of heavy fuel oil.
Ship grounding or ship stranding is the impact of a ship on seabed or waterway side. It may be intentional, as in beaching to land crew or cargo, and careening, for maintenance or repair, or unintentional, as in a marine accident. In accidental cases, it is commonly referred to as "running aground".
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries. Product tankers, generally much smaller, are designed to move refined products from refineries to points near consuming markets.
Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, 554 U.S. 471 (2008), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court ruled in a 5-3 decision that the punitive damages awarded to the victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill should be reduced from $2.5 billion to $500 million.
Dead Ahead: The Exxon Valdez Disaster is a 1992 movie depicting the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster off the coast of Alaska. Directed by Paul Seed, it stars Christopher Lloyd, John Heard, Rip Torn and Michael Murphy.
Odyssey, which previously went by the name Oriental Phoenix, was an oil tanker in operation from 1971 to November 10, 1988, when an explosion caused it to sink in the North Atlantic off the coast of Canada. The resulting spill remains one of the largest oil spills in world history. The tanker was 700 nautical miles off the coast of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia when it sank and released 132,157 tons of oil into the ocean, valued at some $86.7 million (2010). By way of comparison, 4 times as much oil was spilled by the Odyssey as from the much more famous Exxon Valdez.
Riki Ott is a marine toxicologist and activist in Cordova, Alaska. Ott was frequently introduced as an "oil spill expert" in her many media appearances during the height of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill news coverage. After graduating with a doctorate in sedimentary toxicology from the University of Washington, Ott moved to Alaska and started a fishing business. When the Exxon Valdez oil spill disrupted the local fishing-based economy, she became an environmental activist. Since the spill, she has participated in legal and public relations disputes with the Exxon company.
The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council is an independent non-profit organization based in Anchorage and Valdez, Alaska, whose mission is to promote the environmentally-safe operation of the Alyeska Pipeline's Valdez Marine Terminal and associated oil tankers, and to inform the public of those activities.
FSO Safer is a floating oil storage and offloading vessel that is moored in the Red Sea north of the Yemeni city of Al Hudaydah.
CITGO Asphalt Refining Co. v. Frescati Shipping Co., 589 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the responsibility of costs of cleanup resulting from a 2004 oil spill on the Delaware River near Paulsboro, New Jersey from the result of a hull rupture. The ship's owner, the Frescati Shipping Company, was responsible for the costs of the cleanup, coming to more than US$143 million, but under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, believed that Citgo, who had ordered the shipment, bore responsibly for the shipping route through shallow waters that led to the spill. After years of litigation, the Supreme Court ruled in its 7–2 decision that the contract language established between Citgo and Frescati established that Citgo would provide safe berth for the vessel, and thus ultimately responsible for the spill.
USCGC Sedge (WAGL-402/WLB-402) was an Iris-class 180-foot seagoing buoy tender operated by the United States Coast Guard. She served in the Pacific during World War II and in Alaska during the rest of her Coast Guard career. Sedge was decommissioned in 2002 and transferred to the Nigerian Navy where she is still active as NNS Kyanwa.
