Exxon Valdez Diego, California. She was a relatively new tanker at the time of the spill, and was delivered to Exxon on December 16, 1986. 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 (53.1 million gallons) 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
Oil tanker crude carriers (ULCC) built in the 1970s were over long and had a capacity of . Several factors encouraged this growth. Hostilities in the Middle East which interrupted traffic through the Suez Canal contributed, as did nationalization of Middle East oil refineries. Fierce competition among shipowners also played a part. But apart from these considerations is a simple economic advantage: the larger an oil tanker is, the more cheaply it can move crude oil, and the better it can help meet growing demands for oil. In 1955 the world's largest supertanker was and : SS "Spyros Niarchos" launched that year