More than 20 years later, a ship best known for causing an environmental catastrophe is finally being put to rest.
The Exxon Valdez, which spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989, is being bought for $16 million by Global Systems Marketing Inc., a firm that purchases ships for demolition, Bloomberg reports. The vessel, now known as the Oriental Nicety, has changed names and owners four times since the infamous disaster.
At the time, the Exxon Valdez spill was the largest in U.S. history and resulted in Exxon having to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to avoid criminal prosecution, as well as to resolve civil claims made by federal and state governments, according to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Office. In addition, the company paid nearly $4 billion in cleanup costs.
Still, Exxon avoided a larger punishment. In 1994, an Anchorage jury awarded victims of the spill $5 billion, but after a 15-year legal battle the case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court where the justices awarded the victims just $507 million, according to CBS.
“The accident pointed out that the biggest risk involved in oil transport is the impact an accident can have on the environment,” Thomas Zwick, an analyst at Oslo-based shipping consultant Lorentzen & Stemoco AS, said in an e-mail today. “Large companies can go under as a consequence of the financial liabilities bestowed upon them following an accident.”
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the largest U.S. oil company, still faces litigation from the spill. The Irving, Texas-based company spent three years and $3.86 billion to clean up the spill, which damaged 700 miles of coastline and killed more than 36,000 birds, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Exxon Valdez, which spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989, is being bought for $16 million by Global Systems Marketing Inc., a firm that purchases ships for demolition, Bloomberg reports. The vessel, now known as the Oriental Nicety, has changed names and owners four times since the infamous disaster.
At the time, the Exxon Valdez spill was the largest in U.S. history and resulted in Exxon having to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to avoid criminal prosecution, as well as to resolve civil claims made by federal and state governments, according to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Office. In addition, the company paid nearly $4 billion in cleanup costs.
Still, Exxon avoided a larger punishment. In 1994, an Anchorage jury awarded victims of the spill $5 billion, but after a 15-year legal battle the case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court where the justices awarded the victims just $507 million, according to CBS.
“The accident pointed out that the biggest risk involved in oil transport is the impact an accident can have on the environment,” Thomas Zwick, an analyst at Oslo-based shipping consultant Lorentzen & Stemoco AS, said in an e-mail today. “Large companies can go under as a consequence of the financial liabilities bestowed upon them following an accident.”
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the largest U.S. oil company, still faces litigation from the spill. The Irving, Texas-based company spent three years and $3.86 billion to clean up the spill, which damaged 700 miles of coastline and killed more than 36,000 birds, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
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