marine groups post best-ever year for spill prevention

This article originally appeared in the Lamp, 2008 — Number 1

A comprehensive long-term effort to eliminate marine oil spills has resulted in ExxonMobil’s worldwide marine affiliates posting their bestever spill performance in 2007.

Vessels operated by SeaRiver Maritime Inc. and International Marine Transportation Limited (IMT) completed the year with no spills. Three minor spills were experienced on chartered vessels – the fewest ever.

SeaRiver, headquartered in Houston, operates a fleet of U.S.-flag tankers. SeaRiver also provides commercial and third-party quality vetting services to ExxonMobil affiliates in North America, along with a widerange of technical and commercial Marine services.

IMT operates internationally trading tankers and provides third-party quality vetting services and technical marine services for ExxonMobil affiliates from its headquarters in Leatherhead, United Kingdom.

The corporation’s marine transportation affiliates achieved a spill rate of less than one teaspoon per million barrels carried, with approximately 650 vessels in service each day and with a load or discharge operation occurring, on average, about once every three minutes.

“This success is the product of teamwork within and across all marine operating affiliates and commercial organizations,” says Will Jenkins, president of SeaRiver. “High standards and robust management systems, processes and technologies, along with disciplined execution of work and business practices, provide the foundation. In all of this, our world-class people and continuous efforts to improve performance make the difference.”

John Bree, managing director of IMT, says, “Exxonmobil’s marine entities work in a cooperative fashion through our Global Marine Center – and we strive to achieve performance that is consistently flawless, efficient and competitive. We are able to identify and share best practices with the affiliates we support, as well as with industry.”

These affiliates, together with international marine commercial coordination provided by ExxonMobil’s global marine transportation optimization group in Fairfax, Virginia, and a number of other affiliates around the world, have established a new benchmark in marine transportation safety performance.