The Tanker: Exxon Valdez

Hello Eveyone

The oil tanker is a technology that has been adapted from the steam ship in order to meet the needs of an ever-growing population of earth.

The tanker that is seen to be the cause of the disaster within Prince William Sound is named Exxon Valdez. The company that owned the oil tanker is Exxon Mobile, which is still in business today. The Exxon Valdez tanker was considered to be a supertanker; there are many different classifications of supertankers Exxon is considered to be a “Very large crude carriers (VLCCs)” which means that it has a “capacity between 100, 000 and 500, 00 tons (91, 000 and 454, 000 mt)” (Book 1, pg. 3). The Exxon Valdez cost around 125 million to build (Leacook, Pg.2), had a length of 301meters (leacock, pg.3), and could carry 53 million Gallons or (201.5 million liters) of oil (leakcook, pg.3). The Exxon Valdez was also built with a single hull (Hernan, pg.140). A ship this big and that could carry this much oil seems to be something that could not be possible, but yet it was. Exxon Valdez was also the largest tanker within Exxon’s fleet, which could only make it the most impressive of it all.

Within the Exxon Valdez oil spill many people blame the tanker or those who were on it for the disaster. But this disaster just like many others had a multitude of different aspects that can be considered to be a disaster. This disaster is not a single event it is many events put together that all compounded to make it into the final event that happened. The tanker hitting the reef might have been one of the first but it was not the only.

-Alexis

References:

Leacock, Elipheth. The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Facts on File Inc., 2005.

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/03/the-exxon-valdez-oil-spill-25-years-ago-today/100703/