Henry J. Kaiser-class oiler

The Henry J. Kaiser class is an American class of eighteen fleet replenishment oilers whose construction began in August 1984. Fifteen of them are operated by the Military Sealift Command to deliver fuel to United States Navy combat ships and jet fuel for aircraft aboard carriers at sea, working in a non-commissioned status with mostly civilian crews. The class is named for its lead ship, Henry J. Kaiser, honouring the industrialist and shipbuilder; the first nine ships carry the names of shipbuilders, inventors, naval architects and aeronautical engineers, and the tenth to eighteenth the names of American rivers. Three ships, Patuxent, Laramie and Rappahannock, have double hulls to meet the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which cost about 12 percent of their cargo capacity. Two ships were left incomplete and scrapped, and Andrew J. Higgins was sold to Chile in 2009 as Almirante Montt.