Tanker (ship)

Commercial crude oil supertanker AbQaiq

A tanker (or tank ship or tankship) is a merchant vessel designed to transport liquids or gases in bulk. Major types of tankship include the oil tanker, the chemical tanker, and gas carrier. In the United States Navy and Military Sealift Command, any type of tanker used to refuel other ships is called an oiler.

Background

Tankers can range in size of capacity from several hundred tons, which includes vessels for servicing small harbours and coastal settlements, to several hundred thousand tons, for long-range haulage. Besides ocean- or seagoing tankers there are also specialized inland-waterway tankers which operate on rivers and canals with an average cargo capacity up to some thousand tons. A wide range of products are carried by tankers, including:

The Thomas W. Lawson (1902), converted in 1906 into the world's first sailing tanker.

Tankers are a relatively new concept, dating from the later years of the 19th century. Before this, technology had simply not supported the idea of carrying bulk liquids. The market was also not geared towards transporting or selling cargo in bulk, therefore most ships carried a wide range of different products in different holds and traded outside fixed routes. Liquids were usually loaded in casks—hence the term "tonnage", which refers to the volume of the holds in terms of how many tuns or casks of wine could be carried. Even potable water, vital for the survival of the crew, was stowed in casks. Carrying bulk liquids in earlier ships posed several problems:

Tankers were first used by the oil industry to transfer refined fuel in bulk from refineries to customers. This would then be stored in large tanks ashore, and subdivided for delivery to individual locations. The use of tankers caught on because other liquids were also cheaper to transport in bulk, store in dedicated terminals, then subdivide. Even the Guinness brewery used tankers to transport the stout across the Irish Sea.

A US Navy T2 tanker in 1943

Different products require different handling and transport, with specialised variants such as "chemical tankers", "oil tankers", and "LNG carriers" developed to handle dangerous chemicals, oil and oil-derived products, and liquefied natural gas respectively. These broad variants may be further differentiated with respect to ability to carry only a single product or simultaneously transport mixed cargoes such as several different chemicals or refined petroleum products.[1] Among oil tankers, supertankers are designed for transporting oil around the Horn of Africa from the Middle East. The supertanker Seawise Giant, scrapped in 2010, was 458 meters (1,503 ft) in length and 69 meters (226 ft) wide. Supertankers are one of the three preferred methods for transporting large quantities of oil, along with pipeline transport and rail.

Despite being highly regulated, tankers have been involved in environmental disasters resulting from oil spills. See Amoco Cadiz, Braer, Erika, Exxon Valdez, Prestige oil spill and Torrey Canyon for examples of coastal accidents.

Design considerations

Many modern tankers are designed for a specific cargo and a specific route. Draft is typically limited by the depth of water in loading and unloading harbors; and may be limited by the depth of straits along the preferred shipping route. Cargoes with high vapor pressure at ambient temperatures may require pressurized tanks or vapor recovery systems. Tank heaters may be required to maintain heavy crude oil, residual fuel, asphalt, wax, or molasses in a fluid state for offloading.[2]

Tanker capacity

Tankers used for liquid fuels are classified according to their capacity.

The small coastal tanker Pegasus on the River Weser
The Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) MV Sirius Star in 2008 after her capture by Somali pirates

In 1954, Shell Oil developed the average freight rate assessment (AFRA) system which classifies tankers of different sizes. To make it an independent instrument, Shell consulted the London Tanker Brokers’ Panel (LTBP). At first, they divided the groups as General Purpose for tankers under 25,000 tons deadweight (DWT); Medium Range for ships between 25,000 and 45,000 DWT and Large Range for the then-enormous ships that were larger than 45,000 DWT. The ships became larger during the 1970s, and the list was extended, where the tons are long tons:[3]

Petroleum Tankers
Class Length Beam Draft Typical Min DWT Typical Max DWT
Seawaymax 226 m (741 ft) 24 m (79 ft) 7.92 m (26.0 ft) 10,000 t DWT 60,000 t DWT
Panamax 228.6 m (750 ft) 32.3 m (106 ft) 12.6 m (41 ft) 60,000 t DWT 80,000 t DWT
Aframax 253.0 m (830.1 ft) 44.2 m (145 ft) 11.6 m (38 ft) 80,000 t DWT 120,000 t DWT
Suezmax 16 m (52 ft) 120,000 t DWT 200,000 t DWT
VLCC (Malaccamax) 330 m (1,080 ft) 60 m (200 ft) 20 m (66 ft) 200,000 t DWT 315,000 t DWT
ULCC 320,000 t DWT 550,000 t DWT

Very Large Crude Carrier Size Range There are more ships smaller in size.

At nearly 380 vessels in the size range 279,000 t DWT to 320,000 t DWT, these are by far the most popular size range among the larger VLCCs. Only seven vessels are larger than this, and approximately 90 between 220,000 t DWT and 279,000 t DWT.[4]

Fleets of the world

Flag states

As of 2005, the United States Maritime Administration's statistics count 4,024 tankers of 10,000 LT DWT or greater worldwide.[5] 2,582 of these are double-hulled. Panama is the leading flag state of tankers with 592 registered ships. Five other flag states have more than two hundred registered tankers: Liberia (520), The Marshall Islands (323), Greece (233), Singapore (274) and The Bahamas (215). These flag states are also the top six in terms of fleet size in terms of deadweight tonnage.[5]

Largest fleets

Greece, Japan, and the United States are the top three owners of tankers (including those owned but registered to other nations), with 733, 394, and 311 vessels respectively. These three nations account for 1,438 vessels or over 36% of the world's fleet.[5]

Builders

Asian companies dominate the construction of tankers. Of the world's 4,024 tankers, 2,822 or over 70% were built in South Korea, Japan or China.[5]

See also

Companies

Notes

  1. ↑ Morrell, p.1
  2. ↑ Morrell, pp.1&8
  3. ↑ Evangelista, Joe, Ed. (Winter 2002). "Scaling the Tanker Market" (PDF). Surveyor. American Bureau of Shipping (4): 5–11. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2008-02-27.
  4. ↑ Auke Visser (22 February 2007). "Tanker list, status 01-01-2007". International Super Tankers. Retrieved 2008-02-27.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Office of Data and Economic Analysis (July 2006). "World Merchant Fleet 2001–2005" (.PDF). United States Maritime Administration: 3, 5, 6. Retrieved 2008-02-27.

References

  • Central Intelligence Agency. CIA World Factbook 2008. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 1-60239-080-0. Retrieved 2008-02-27. 
  • Encyclopædia Britannica (1911). "Petroleum". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 21 (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 316–322. OCLC 70608430. Retrieved 2008-02-22. 
  • Encyclopædia Britannica (1911). "Ship". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 24 (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 881–889. OCLC 70608430. Retrieved 2008-02-22. 
  • Hayler, William B.; Keever, John M. (2003). American Merchant Seaman's Manual. Centerville, MD: Cornell Maritime Press. ISBN 0-87033-549-9. 
  • Morrell, Robert W. (1931). Oil Tankers (Second ed.). New York: Simmons-Boardman Publishing Company. 
  • Turpin, Edward A.; McEwen, William A. (1980). Merchant Marine Officers' Handbook (Fourth ed.). Centreville, MD: Cornell Maritime Press. ISBN 0870333798. 
  • Wiltshire, Andrew (2008). Looking Back at Classic Tankers. Bristol, England: Bernard McCall. ISBN 9781902953366. 
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