Renamed Exxon Valdez to Sail New Course : Environment: Exxon denies that the tanker’s name and route have been changed as a public relations ploy.

Exxon Shipping Co. officials announced Friday that the Exxon Valdez, the tanker that caused the worst oil spill in the nation’s history, will return to service in mid-August with a new name and a new route outside U.S. waters.

The 987-foot tanker, rechristened the Exxon Mediterranean, has not been retrofitted with a double bottom, which the U.S. Coast Guard said would have greatly lessened the impact of the March, 1989, spill.

The tanker’s route was changed not for public relations reasons, but because of a declining need to transport Alaskan crude oil, Exxon Shipping Co. President Gus Elmer said at a press conference not far from the San Diego shipyard where about $30 million in repairs are being completed. The tanker will load Middle Eastern oil in the Mediterranean and deliver it to Europe, becoming the first U.S.-licensed tanker to enter foreign service, officials said.

“We’re going to go forward from here,” Elmer said.

In March, 1989, the Valdez ran aground on Alaska’s Bligh Reef, tearing open its hull and spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound. It was towed into San Diego Bay last July to undergo repairs to its single-skin hull at National Steel & Shipbuilding Co., where it was built in 1986.

The Coast Guard has concluded that, if the Valdez had been equipped with a double hull, as much as 60% of the oil would not have spilled into the water. But Elmer said Friday that, although it would have been technically feasible for Nassco to retrofit the Valdez with a double hull as part of its repairs, Exxon opted to have it “returned to its original construction.”

Elmer said Exxon is awaiting the results of a National Academy of Science study, commissioned by the Coast Guard, that is considering how double hulls and double bottoms increase the safety of tankers. Exxon plans to follow that study’s recommendations when it builds tankers, Elmer said, but will probably not retrofit its existing fleet to meet any stricter guidelines.

“Retrofitting really is not an (economically) viable alternative,” he said. “What you’re doing is really building a new ship. You’re talking about replacing 80% of the ship and having the vessel out of service for a long, long time.”

In response to repeated questions, Elmer denied that Exxon had renamed and reassigned the Valdez to improve the company’s image.

“Going foreign was purely an economic matter,” he said. “And the renaming is consistent with our policy that we try to name the ships as best we can after their principal area of service.”

Elmer said the Valdez and its sister ship, the Exxon Long Beach, were designed to travel from Alaska to Panama. Now Exxon no longer trades in Panama and delivers Alaskan oil exclusively to the U.S. West Coast, where only two ports--Los Angeles and San Francisco--can accommodate a tanker as large as the Valdez. Even there, he said, the tankers must be partly empty, or “light-loaded,” to enter the ports.

When combined with the decreasing supply of Alaskan oil, Elmer said, those shorter West Coast voyages likely would have prompted Exxon to change the Valdez’s route, even if the spill had been avoided.

“There’s no question that, had we not had the accident, at this point in time we would be sitting on surplus capacity . . . on the West Coast,” he said, adding that, if the future sees further declines in supply as expected, Exxon could consider reassigning the Exxon Long Beach or another of the seven tankers that serve the West Coast as well.

He stressed that the ship, the first U.S.-licensed tanker to enter foreign service, will “remain American.”

“The Exxon Mediterranean will be U.S.-flagged. She’ll have a U.S. crew. She will be U.S.-owned, and she will be managed by my organization and will therefore be U.S.-managed,” Elmer said.

Elmer said he and his colleagues “obviously don’t subscribe to the bad-luck theory” that says it is foolhardy to change a ship’s name. In fact, he said, the company tries to match the ship’s name to its home port. When the Exxon Garden State moved from New Jersey to Louisiana, for example, it was renamed the Exxon Bayou State, he said.

Kelly Quirke, a spokesman for Greenpeace, disputed Elmer’s explanations, calling the Friday announcement “a PR move, absolutely.”

“If the Exxon Valdez hadn’t run aground last year, we certainly wouldn’t be seeing them moving it to the Mediterranean right now. And you wouldn’t see them renaming it,” Quirke said. “Exxon feels that the best way for the Exxon Valdez to avoid Bligh Reef is to move the Valdez to a different ocean.”

Now that the Valdez is about to return to service, Elmer said, it will undergo a series of drills to make sure it is ready for duty. Two new captains have been chosen to sail the tanker, one of whom will deliver it to the Mediterranean Sea via Singapore. But, before he does, the ship will be tested from bow to stern.

“The ship’s been out of service for a long time, so we’ll be checking everything: navigation, engine room, the computers, the radars, all the steering equipment, the cargo handling equipment,” Elmer said. By mid-August, he said, “inspectors will get off, and she’ll be provisioned for her voyage overseas.”

Fred Hallett, Nassco’s vice president and chief financial officer, said that, when the Exxon project is complete, the 300 pipe fitters, carpenters, electricians, welders and painters who were employed to fix it will not be laid off.

“These workers will be transferred to other projects in the area,” Hallett said.

Elmer said the two Volkswagen-size boulders extracted from the Valdez’ hull have been ground up and disposed of. San Diego Port District Commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer had once suggested that the boulders be made into an environmental monument.

Proposals like Wolfsheimer’s, Elmer said, “were judged to be inappropriate.”

Elmer would not comment on continuing litigation prompted by the oil spill.