Oriental Nicety, formerly Exxon Valdez, Exxon Mediterranean, SeaRiver Mediterranean, S/R Mediterranean, Mediterranean, and Dong Fang Ocean, was an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil in Alaska.
On March 24, 1989, while owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company, and captained by Joseph Hazelwood and First Mate James Kunkel bound for Long Beach, California, the vessel ran aground on the Bligh Reef resulting in the second largest oil spill in United States history. The size of the spill is estimated to have been 40,900 to 120,000 m3.
The tanker was 301 meters long, 51 meters wide, and 26 meters deep, with a deadweight of 214,861 long tons and a full-load displacement of 240,291 long tons. The ship was able to transport up to 235,000 m³ at a sustained speed of 30 km/h. Her hull design was of the single-hull type, constructed by National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego, California. She was a relatively new tanker at the time of the spill, having been delivered to Exxon on December 16, 1986.
More information: National Ocean Service
At the time of the spill, Exxon Valdez was employed to transport crude oil from the Alyeska consortium's pipeline terminal in Valdez, Alaska, to the lower 48 states of the United States. At the time it ran aground, the vessel was carrying about 201,000 m³ of oil. After the spill, the vessel was towed to San Diego, arriving on June 10, 1989, and repairs were started on June 30, 1989. Approximately 1,600 tons of steel were removed and replaced that July, totaling US$30 million of repairs to the tanker. Its single-hull design remained unaltered.
The Exxon Valdez spill occurred under President George H. W. Bush, whose EPA Administrator William K. Reilly played a significant role in mobilizing presidential support for action to contain and clean up the spill.
Litigation was filed on behalf of 38,000 litigants. In 1994, a jury awarded plaintiffs US$287 million in compensatory damages and US$5 billion in punitive damages. Exxon appealed and the Ninth Circuit Court reduced the punitive damages to US$2.5 billion. Exxon then appealed the punitive damages to the Supreme Court which capped the damages to US$507.5 million in June 2008. On August 27, 2008, Exxon Mobil agreed to pay 75% of the US$507.5 million damages ruling to settle the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska.
In June 2009, a federal ruling ordered Exxon to pay an additional US$480 million in interest on their delayed punitive damage awards.
After repairs, Exxon Valdez was renamed Exxon Mediterranean, then SeaRiver Mediterranean in the early 1990s, when Exxon transferred its shipping business to a new subsidiary company, River Maritime Inc. The name was later shortened to S/R Mediterranean, then to simply Mediterranean in 2005. Although Exxon tried briefly to return the ship to its North American fleet, it was prohibited by law from returning to Prince William Sound. It then served in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In 2002, the ship was again removed from service.
More information: Marine Insight
In 2005, it began operating under the Marshall Islands flag of convenience. Since then, European Union regulations have also prevented vessels with single-hull designs such as the Valdez from entering European ports.
In early 2008, SeaRiver Maritime, an ExxonMobil subsidiary, sold Mediterranean to the Hong Kong-based shipping company, Hong Kong Bloom Shipping Ltd., which renamed the ship, once again, to Dong Fang Ocean, under Panama registry. In 2008, she was refitted and converted from an oil tanker to an ore carrier. Hong Kong Bloom Shipping, is a subsidiary of Chinese Government owned company China Ocean Shipping (Group) Corporation (COSCO).
On November 29, 2010, Dong Fang Ocean collided in the South China Sea with the Malta-flagged cargo ship, Aali. Both vessels were severely damaged in the incident, and Aali was towed to Weihai and Dong Fang Ocean was towed to Longyan Port in Shandong.
In March 2012, Dong Fang Ocean was purchased by Global Marketing Systems, Inc. for scrap at an estimated US$16 million and sailed under her own power to a ship breaker in Singapore. She changed hands again among scrap merchants, a common occurrence, and was eventually routed to Alang, India, under the ownership of Priya Blue Industries and at some point renamed Oriental Nicety.
Before being beached, some tried to halt the action, arguing that the vessel was in breach of the Basel Convention.
On 30 July 2012, the Supreme Court of India granted permission for the owners of Oriental Nicety to beach her at Gujarat coast to be dismantled. She was then beached at Alang on 2 August 2012.
More information: DW
I went down on the beach and looked around,
and the mussels had all died.
I’d touch them, and they’d fall off the rocks.
Elenore McMullen
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