Oil tankers have a vital role to play within the energy value chain. Their main role is to transport crude oil from production point to refinery, although they are also sometimes used for storing crude oil post production. Crude tankers can also be used for carrying oil products such as fuel oil.
Crude oil tankers are typically large dedicated ships that carry solely crude oil. As an example, the Jahre Viking, a crude oil tanker built in 1977, is the largest floating object ever built and would require 16,500 road tanker trucks to empty its full load of cargo.
Main Types of Tankers
• Oil Tanker – tanker for the carriage of crude-oil
• Shuttle Tanker - tanker ship for the carriage of crude-oil directly from the offshore oil fields to terminals or refineries.
• Product Tanker - tanker for the carriage of refined products derived from crude oil (gasoline, Diesel oil, jet fuel) from the refineries.
In the year 1861, an exporter from Philadelphia was responsible for making the first export of crude oil to London – in a conventional tanker, the “Elizabeth Watts” with a 224-tonne capacity.
The Gluckauf was built in England, in the year 1886, with a capacity of 2297 tonnes. This was the first slip designed for transporting crude oil in bulk in large, separated tanks.
Crude oil tankers come in various sizes, the biggest standard size being a Very Large Crude Carrier – or 'VLCC'. These tankers take up to 2 million barrels of crude oil per shipment, while the second largest size is the 'Suezmax' which takes around half of that amount and is the largest size ship that can sail through the Suez Canal fully laden. The smallest size of dedicated crude oil tankers is an 'Aframax' which can carry around 600,000 barrels of oil.
Oil tanker
