Exxon Valdez oil spill Exxon Valdez oil spill The "Exxon Valdez" oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, March 24, 1989, when "Exxon Valdez", an oil tanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, 1.5 miles west of Tatitlek, Alaska at 12:04 am local time and spilled (or a mass of 35,000 metric tonnes) of crude oil over the next few days. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters. The "Valdez" spill is the second largest in US waters, after the 2010 "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill, in terms
Architecture of the oil tanker double-hull tanker can be significantly higher than designs like the Mid-Deck Tanker, the Coulombi Egg Tanker and even a pre-MARPOL tanker, as the last one has a lower oil column and reaches hydrostatic balance sooner. A Mid-Deck Tanker is a tanker design, which includes an additional deck intended to limit spills if the tanker is damaged. The extra deck is placed at about the middle of the draft of the ship. With double hull tankers, in high energy casualties where both hulls are breached, oil can spill through the double-hull and into the sea. In grounding events of this type,