Skip to footer

Exxon Valdez bound for scrap heap in India

Exxon Valdez: Best Oasis Ltd., an Indian company that buys old ships to dismantle them, and recycle salvageable material, bought the old old tanker. The Exxon Valdez was involved in one of the worst oil spills in US history. 

|
(AP Photo/John Gaps III, File)
Crude oil from the tanker Exxon Valdez, swirls on the surface of Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989. The Exxon Valdez was involved in one of the worst oil spills in US history.
  • By Nirmala George Associated Press

| New Delhi

The notorious Exxon Valdez tanker, responsible for one of the worst oil spills in US history two decades ago, has been bought by an Indian company almost certainly to be scrapped for its steel and spare parts.

Best Oasis Ltd. would not disclose the price or purpose of its purchase, but it buys old ships solely to dismantle them, reuse salvageable material and discard the rest.

On March 24, 1989, millions of gallons of crude oil spewed into Alaska's ecologically sensitive Prince William Sound when the Exxon Valdez dashed against rocks, coating the shoreline with petroleum sludge and killing nearly 40,000 birds. The spill caused incalculable environmental damage and demolished the fishing industry in the area.

Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp., spent $900 million in restitution in a 1991 settlement and is battling more litigation from the spill.

The tanker moved on, with five name changes since the spill and ownership changing repeatedly, apparently to keep the ship in use while distancing it from the disaster.

Best Oasis official Gaurav Mehta said his company bought the ship recently. It's now a converted ore carrier known as the Oriental Nicety, but he did not disclose its current location and status.

"I can confirm that Best Oasis has bought the tanker, but can give no details till we take delivery of it," Mehta said.

The ship is 26 years old, not significantly aged for tankers, but it was considerably damaged in its lifetime. It was split open by rocks in the Alaska spill and was damaged in a collision in the South China Sea in 2010.

Hong Kong-based Best Oasis is a wholly owned subsidiary of Priya Blue Industries in the western state of Gujarat.

India has one of the world's largest industries for breaking down old ships and oil tankers in the town of Alang, along the Gulf of Cambay in Gujarat.

IN PICTURES: Destructive oil spills 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Exxon Valdez bound for scrap heap in India
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0323/Exxon-Valdez-bound-for-scrap-heap-in-India
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe