SeaRiver commissions double-hull Alaska tanker design

Feb. 3, 2003
SeaRiver Maritime, the US transportation affiliate of ExxonMobil Corp., reached an agreement with National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. (Nassco) to develop a contract design for a 750,000 bbl capacity, double-hull tanker for transport of Alaskan crude to West Coast refineries.

SeaRiver Maritime, the US transportation affiliate of ExxonMobil Corp., reached an agreement with National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. (Nassco) to develop a contract design for a 750,000 bbl capacity, double-hull tanker for transport of Alaskan crude to West Coast refineries.

San Diego-based Nassco, a subsidiary of General Dynamics, said the contract design package would include a price and delivery proposal for the detail design and construction of at least two new vessels.

That announcement follows court action last October in which Houston-based SeaRiver sought to overturn the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, passed after the Exxon Valdez grounded on Bligh Reef on Mar. 24, 1989, and spilled 242,000 bbl of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound (OGJ, Apr. 3, 1989, p. 26).

That law prohibits use of the sound by any tanker that has previously spilled 1 million gal of oil anywhere in the world. Included in that ban is the Exxon Valdez, renamed SeaRiver Mediterranean, one of nine tankers operated by the company.

SeaRiver spent about $30 million repairing the damaged hull of the former Exxon Valdez. Since then, the single-hull vessel, built by Nassco in 1986 at a cost $125 million, has been shipping internationally under the US flag.

Alaskan oil trades are restricted to US vessels, and industry sources suggested SeaRiver might have kept the Mediterranean under the US flag in hopes of returning the ship back to the Alaska trade. In 1999, a company spokesman said the massive tanker was too big for East Coast ports and was losing money in the Mediterranean.

Formerly considered the flagship of the Exxon fleet, the 987 ft vessel was designed for just one route: hauling crude oil from the terminus of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline at Valdez south to Panama and occasionally the US West Coast.

Last October, SeaRiver argued to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals that the Valdez was being wrongly singled out and that there was no basis in thinking that a vessel that spilled oil in the past would spill in the future.

But the three-judge panel disagreed unanimously. "The concern that the Exxon Valdez presents an unreasonable risk to Prince William Sound is sufficient to justify the restriction on SeaRiver's use of the vessel in that area," Judge Richard Paez wrote.

"We're disappointed with the outcome," said SeaRiver spokesman Ray Botto after the Court's decision. "We're currently evaluating it and have not determined what a go-forward plan would look like."

Meanwhile, SeaRiver agreed to sell Kirby Corp. 48 double-hull inland tank barges and 7 inland towboats for $35.4 million. Kirby also agreed to take on SeaRiver's leases of 16 double-hull inland tank barges. Under terms of the agreement, Kirby will provide SeaRiver with inland marine transport services, carrying petrochemicals, refined petroleum products, and black oil products through the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway and the Mississippi River system.