SeaRiver Maritime is a

wholly owned subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...

ExxonMobil Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the Successors of Standard Oil, largest direct s ...

. The company was formed in the early 1990s by Exxon when it spun off its maritime operations into the new company following the

Exxon Valdez oil spill The ''Exxon Valdez'' oil spill was a major environmental disaster that occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The spill occurred when ''Exxon Valdez'', an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Be ...

in 1989. In 1994, SeaRiver applied for a federal subsidy to operate tankers in the Persian Gulf. The petition stated they needed the money to stay competitive, because the ''S/R Mediterranean'' (the new name for the Exxon Valdez vessel) was unable to operate in Prince William Sound following the passage of the

Oil Pollution Act of 1990 The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) was passed by the 101st United States Congress and signed by President George H. W. Bush. It works to avoid oil spills from vessels and facilities by enforcing removal of spilled oil and assigning liability f ...

, which prohibits the tanker from operating in that area. In 1996, SeaRiver sought to put the ''S/R Mediterranean'' back into Prince William Sound by arguing that the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was unconstitutional. The Act prohibits any vessel that has spilled more than a million gallons of oil from operating in

Prince William Sound Prince William Sound ( Sugpiaq: ''Suungaaciq'') is a sound off the Gulf of Alaska on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located on the east side of the Kenai Peninsula. Its largest port is Valdez, at the southern terminus of the ...

. SeaRiver claimed the act was retroactively being applied to the ''S/R Mediterranean''. In 1998, a judge ruled against SeaRiver. The company currently operates three tankers engaged in the Alaska-West Coast crude oil trade. In July 2011, the company ordered two new crude oil tankers to be built at Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, due to be delivered in 2014, which will replace two existing vessels.

References

Ships of ExxonMobil ExxonMobil subsidiaries {{US-company-stub