Exxon Valdez Exxon Valdez 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 ,
History of the oil tanker ships with oil instead of coal, mass-production of automobiles and increasing aviation, all increased demand for oil and thus oil transport. In 1928 the World's largest oil tanker was the , completed that year for Canadian owners by Bremer Vulkan in Germany. With the right connections at the Shipping Board, ships could be bought cheaply, which caused a lot of fraud. This system was too complicated for the oil companies however, so when World War II started, independents owned 39 percent of the world tanker fleet. This was especially because oil companies needed capital to invest in the growing oil