Currently there are three largest oil tanker company in the world: Mitsui OSK Lines, Teekay Corp, Euronav NV.
After the delivery in 1953 of MHI's (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) first tanker since WW II, MHI delivered the Veedol with 45,834 DWT, to Tide Water Tankers Co. in San Francisco in December 1955. This indicates that the size of tankers had increased almost 1.7 times in only 3 years.
The era of supertankers, meaning tankers with capacities of 30,000 to 40,000 DWT, lasted until around 1951. The Naess Sovereign was delivered to Anglo American Shipping Co., Ltd., in January 1951 had a capacity of 88,494 DWT, approximately twice as large as the supertankers. The ship was built in Nagasaki, Japan.
When delivered Naess Sovereign was the third largest tanker in the world, and the largest under the British flag. During 1963 the Naess sovereign ran between Ras Tannurah and Bataan Oil Refinery in Manila Bay. The refinery was built more or less on the WW2 landing site.
In September 1965, a dock with a capacity of 300,000 metric tons was built in Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works of MHI. The Bergehus was delivered to Sig Bergesen D.Y. & Co. in October 1967, had a capacity of 202,557 DWT, which marked the beginning of the VLCC era.
In about 15 years, from March 1953 to October 1967, the size of tankers grew from around 30,000 DWT to approximately 200,000 DWT, an increase of almost a factor of seven. In the next 10 years, VLCCs were continuously constructed.
In 2016, two VLCCs, Awilco Eco Takers pair Eco Future and Eco Green were built by Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering for DHT Holdings and will be delivered in 2021.
In the 1970s, a series of ULCC “Ultra Large Crude Carrier” was built for further improvement of cost-efficiency. The world's largest merchant ship, Knock Nevis, delivered in 1979, was 458 meters in length and 69 meters in width and was able to load more than 4 million barrels of crude oil, doubled the capacity of a typical VLCC.
Carrying such a heavy weight would not only ensure that many oil containers are being transported, but it would also ensure that limited number of trips are taken to ferry a specified number of containers.
History of VLCCs
