History of the oil tanker - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The history of the oil tanker is part of the evolution of the technology of oil transportation alongside the oil industry. Although man's use of oil reaches to prehistory, the first modern commercial exploitation dates back to James Young's manufacture of parafin in 1850. In these early days, oil from Upper Burma

Upper Burma

Upper Burma refers to a geographic region of Burma , traditionally encompassing Mandalay and its periphery , or more broadly speaking, Kachin and Shan States....

was moved in earthenware vessels to the river bank where it was then poured into boat holds.

In the 1850s, the Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

oil fields became a major supplier of oil, and a center of innovation after Edwin Drake

Edwin Drake

Edwin Laurentine Drake , also known as Colonel Drake, was an American oil driller, popularly credited with being the first to drill for oil in the United States.-Early life:...

had struck oil near Titusville, Pennsylvania

Titusville, Pennsylvania

Titusville is a city in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 6,146 at the 2000 census. In 1859, oil was successfully drilled in Titusville, resulting in the birth of the modern oil industry.-History:...

. The first oil well

Oil well

An oil well is a general term for any boring through the earth's surface that is designed to find and acquire petroleum oil hydrocarbons. Usually some natural gas is produced along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce mainly or only gas may be termed a gas well.-History:The earliest...

in the United States was dug here in 1859, initially yielding around ten barrels per day. Within two years, the Titusville field was providing 3000 oilbbl/d.

The invention of oil refining led to the availability of kerosene

Kerosene

Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...

as lamp oil, which has a smokeless combustion in contrast with the until then highly used whale oil

Whale oil

Whale oil is the oil obtained from the blubber of various species of whales, particularly the three species of right whale and the bowhead whale prior to the modern era, as well as several other species of baleen whale...

. The lamp oil became known as Pennsylvania Kerosine. Due to overfishing

Overfishing

Overfishing occurs when fishing activities reduce fish stocks below an acceptable level. This can occur in any body of water from a pond to the oceans....

, whale oil became rare and expensive. By this time, petroleum oil had already begun to supplant fish, whale, and vegetable oils for applications such as indoor and outdoor lighting, and transatlantic export had already begun.

Break-bulk boats and barges were originally used to transport Pennsylvania oil in 40 gallons (151.4 l) wooden barrels. But transport by barrel had several problems. The first problem was weight: the standard empty barrel weighed 64 pounds (29 kg), representing 20% of the total weight of a full barrel. Also, barrels were leaky, and could only be carried one way. Finally, barrels were themselves expensive. For example, in the early years of the Russian oil industry, barrels accounted for half the cost of petroleum production.

The movement of oil in bulk was attempted in many places and in many ways. Modern oil pipelines have existed since 1860. In 1863, two sail-driven tankers were built on England's River Tyne

River Tyne

The River Tyne is a river in North East England in Great Britain. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'.The North Tyne rises on the...

. These were followed in 1873 by the first oil-tank steamer, the Vaderland, which was built by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company

Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company

Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited, often referred to simply as Palmers, was a British shipbuilding company. The Company was based in Jarrow, in Northeast England and also had operations in Hebburn and Willington Quay on the River Tyne....

for the Belgium Red Star Line

Red Star Line

The Red Star Line was an ocean passenger line founded in 1871 as a joint venture between the International Navigation Company of Philadelphia, which also ran the American Line, and the Société Anonyme de Navigation Belgo-Américaine of Antwerp, Belgium...

. The vessel's use was curtailed by U.S. and Belgian authorities citing safety concerns. By 1871, the Pennsylvania oil fields were making limited use of oil tank barges and cylindrical railroad tank-cars similar to those in use today.

The Nobel Brothers

In 1876, Ludvig

Ludvig Nobel

Ludvig Immanuel Nobel was an engineer, a noted businessman and a humanitarian. One of the most prominent members of the Nobel family, he was the son of Immanuel Nobel and Alfred Nobel's older brother...

and Robert Nobel

Robert Nobel

Robert Hjalmar Nobel was the oldest son of Immanuel Nobel and his wife Caroline Andrietta Ahlsell, brother of Ludvig and Alfred Nobel....

, brothers of Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer. He is the inventor of dynamite. Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments...

, founded Branobel

Branobel

The Petroleum Production Company Nobel Brothers, Limited,or Branobel , was an oil company set up by Ludvig Nobel and Baron Peter von Bilderling, in Baku, Azerbaijan...

(short for Brothers Nobel) in Baku

Baku

Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...

, Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...

. It was, during the late 19th century, one of the largest oil companies in the world.

Ludvig was a pioneer in the development of early oil tankers. He first experimented with carrying oil in bulk on single-hulled barges. Turning his attention to self-propelled tankships, he faced a number of challenges. A primary concern was to keep the cargo and fumes well away from the engine room to avoid fires. Other challenges included allowing for the cargo to expand and contract due to temperature changes, and providing a method to ventilate the tanks.

Even Tollefsen of Norway constructed the world's first successful oil tanker "Lindesnæs" in Tønsberg, Norway, in 1877. A little later, in 1878, Nobel's Zoroaster was built. He designed this ship in Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

, Sweden, with Sven Almqvist. The contract to build it was signed in January 1878, and it made its first run later that year from Baku

Baku

to Astrakhan

Astrakhan

Astrakhan is a major city in southern European Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on the left bank of the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea at an altitude of below the sea level. Population:...

. The Zoroaster design was widely studied and copied, with Nobel refusing to patent any part of it. In October 1878, he ordered two more tankers of the same design: the Buddha and the Nordenskjöld.

Zoraster carried its 242 long tons of kerosene cargo in two iron tanks joined by pipes. One tank was forward of the midships engineroom and the other was aft. The ship also featured a set of 21 vertical watertight compartments for extra buoyancy

Buoyancy

In physics, buoyancy is a force exerted by a fluid that opposes an object's weight. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid. Thus a column of fluid, or an object submerged in the fluid, experiences greater pressure at the bottom of the...

. The ship had a length overall of 184 feet (56.1 m), a beam of 27 feet (8.2 m), and a draft of 9 feet (2.7 m). Unlike later Nobel tankers, the Zoraster design was built small enough to sail from Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

to the Caspian

Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...

by way of the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

, Lake Ladoga

Lake Ladoga

Lake Ladoga is a freshwater lake located in the Republic of Karelia and Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia, not far from Saint Petersburg. It is the largest lake in Europe, and the 14th largest lake by area in the world.-Geography:...

, Lake Onega

Lake Onega

Lake Onega is a lake in the north-west European part of Russia, located on the territory of Republic of Karelia, Leningrad Oblast and Vologda Oblast. It belongs to the basin of Baltic Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and is the second largest lake in Europe after Lake Ladoga...

, the Rybinsk

Rybinsk

Rybinsk is the second largest city of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, which lies at the confluence of the Volga and Sheksna Rivers. Population: It is served by Rybinsk Staroselye airport.-Early history:...

and Mariinsk Canals and the Volga River

Volga River

The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...

.

When W.A. Riedmann of Geestemünde

Bremerhaven

Bremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...

entered the petroleum trade in 1877, he noted the difficulties of using barrels, and began to experiment with the former emigrant ships Adona and Derby, filling their large iron drinking water tanks with oil. In October 1879 he purchased the Andromeda at Liverpool, an 1876 ton full-rigged composite ship built in 1864, brought it to Teklenborgs Werft, and added seventy iron tanks to the hold. The piping between the tanks was connected so that all could be filled from a single tank. The composite hull, with structural members of iron covered with wooden planking, was especially suitable for the addition of tanks, because they could be firmly fastened to the iron beams. Andromeda made seven trips from Germany to North America as a sailing oil tanker.

Nobel then began to adopt a single-hull design, where the ship's hull forms part of its tank structure. In November 1880, he ordered his first single-hulled tanker, the Moses. Within a year, he ordered seven more single-hulled tankers: the Mohammed, Tatarin, Bramah, Spinoza, Socrates, Darwin, Koran, Talmud, and Calmuck.

Branobel experienced one of the first oil tanker disasters. In 1881, the Zoroasters sister-ship, the Nordenskjöld exploded in Baku while taking on kerosene

Kerosene

. The pipe carrying the cargo was jerked away from the hold when the ship was hit by a gust of wind. Kerosene then spilled onto the deck and down into the engineroom, where mechanics were working in the light of kerosene lanterns. The ship then exploded, killing half the crew. Nobel responded to the disaster by creating a flexible, leakproof loading pipe which was much more resistant to spills.

In 1883, oil tanker design took a large step forward. Working for the Nobel company, Colonel Henry F. Swan designed a set of three Nobel tankers. Instead of one or two large holds, Swan's design used several holds which spanned the width, or beam, of the ship. These holds were further subdivided into port and starboard sections by a longitudinal bulkhead. Earlier designs suffered from stability problems caused by the free surface effect

Free Surface Effect

The free surface effect is one of several mechanisms which can cause a craft to become unstable and roll over . It refers to the tendency of liquids — and of aggregates of small solid objects, like seeds, gravel, or crushed ore which can act as liquids — to slosh about: to move in response to...

, where oil sloshing from side to side could cause a ship to capsize. But this approach of dividing the ship's storage space into smaller tanks virtually eliminated free-surface

Free Surface Effect

problems. This approach, almost universal today, was first used by Swan in the Nobel tankers Blesk, Lumen, and Lux.

In 1903, the Nobel brothers built two oil tankers which ran on internal combustion engine

Internal combustion engine

The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...

s, as opposed to the older steam engine

Steam engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

s. The Vandal

Vandal (tanker)

Vandal was a river tanker designed by Karl Hagelin and Johny Johnson for Branobel. Russian Vandal and French Petite-Pierre, launched in 1903, were the world's first diesel-powered ships...

, the first diesel-electric

Diesel-electric

Diesel-electric transmission or diesel-electric powertrain is used by a number of vehicle and ship types for providing locomotion.A diesel-electric transmission system includes a diesel engine connected to an electrical generator, creating electricity that powers electric traction motors...

ship, was capable of carrying 750 long tons of refined oil was powered by three 120 hp diesel motors. The larger Sarmat employed four 180 h.p. engines. The first seagoing diesel-powered tanker, 4,500 ton Mysl, was built by Nobel's competitors in Kolomna

Kolomna

Kolomna is an ancient city and the administrative center of Kolomensky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, situated at the confluence of the Moskva and Oka Rivers, southeast of Moscow. The area of the city is about . The city was founded in 1177...

. Nobel responded with Emanuel Nobel and Karl Hagelin, 4,600 long ton kerosene tankers with 1200 hp engines.

The 475 ft., 7-masted schooner Thomas W. Lawson

Thomas W. Lawson (ship)

The Thomas W. Lawson was a seven-masted, steel-hulled schooner originally planned for the Pacific trade, but then used primarily to haul coal and oil along the East Coast of the United States. Built in 1902, the ship holds the distinction of being the largest schooner and the largest pure sailing...

, built in 1902, was the largest purely-sail tanker ever built. It carried coal, and oil in barrels from Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

to the East Coast of the U.S. This 5,218 GRT schooner was fitted out as an oil tanker in 1906, and sunk in a storm off Isles of Scilly

Isles of Scilly

The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...

in Dec. 1907.

The Glückauf represented a large step forward in tanker design. Another design of Colonel Swan, the ship has been called the "true progenitor of all subsequent tanker tonnage." Its features included cargo valves operable from the deck, cargo main piping, a vapor line, cofferdam

Cofferdam

A cofferdam is a temporary enclosure built within, or in pairs across, a body of water and constructed to allow the enclosed area to be pumped out, creating a dry work environment for the major work to proceed...

s for added safety, and the ability to load seawater ballast

Ballast tank

A ballast tank is a compartment within a boat, ship or other floating structure that holds water.-History:The basic concept behind the ballast tank can be seen in many forms of aquatic life, such as the blowfish or argonaut octopus, and the concept has been invented and reinvented many times by...

when empty of cargo. Wilhelm Anton Riedemann, an agent for the Standard Oil Company purchased Glückauf and several of her sister ships. After the Glückauf was lost in 1893, Standard Oil purchased the sister ships. Riedemann's sailing fleet, which consisted of 5 petroleum clippers, including the Maria Anna, and 6 other ships, was dissolved in 1889.

Oil, being a highly used source in many countries, is sent all around the world in oil tankers. These tankers, often run aground on reefs, ship wrecks and shallow waters. This leads to tones of oil being spilt into the ocean, spreading for miles until it washes up on a beach. Marine creatures, such as whales, dolphins, bird, fish, seals etc. all get affected by these major events. If a whale comes up for a breath in an oil leakage, oil will get stuck in its blow hole and get into its lungs. When the whale comes up for a breath again, it wont be able to breath because of the oil stuck in its blow hole. It will eventually die for either suffocation or being poisoned from the oil. Oil also gets stuck in birds wings, and causes them great struggle trying to fly or swim. Birds often dive into an oil leakage thinking it is a group of fish.

Breaking the Standard Oil monopoly

The 1880s also saw the beginnings of the Asian oil trade. The oil industry in Azerbaijan

Oil Industry in Azerbaijan

The petroleum industry in Azerbaijan produces about of oil per day and 1 bcma of gas. Azerbaijan is one of the birthplaces of the oil industry, its history is linked to the fortunes of petroleum. It is poised to become an important oil and gas producer once again.- Early history:There is evidence...

was the largest producer in the world at that time, but was limited to the Russian market. John D. Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller

John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...

s Standard Oil

Standard Oil

Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...

dominated the world market. The Rothschilds already had constructed a railway to the Black Sea.

The idea that led to moving Russian oil to the Far East via the Suez Canal was the brainchild of two men: importer Marcus Samuel

Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted

Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted JP , known as Sir Marcus Samuel, 1st Baronet between 1903 and 1921 and subsequently as The Lord Bearsted until 1925, was the founder of the Shell Transport and Trading Company, a precursor to Royal Dutch Shell.-Career:Samuel was born into a Jewish family in...

and shipowner/broker Fred Lane — the London agent for the De Rothschild Frères

Rothschild banking family of France

The Rothschild banking family of France was founded in 1812 in Paris by James Mayer Rothschild . James was sent there from his home in Frankfurt, Germany by his father, Mayer Amschel Rothschild...

. Prior bids to move oil through the canal had been rejected by the Suez Canal Company

Suez Canal Company

The Universal Suez Ship Canal Company was the Egyptian corporation which was formed by Ferdinand de Lesseps during 1858, constructed the Suez Canal between 1859 and 1869, and owned and operated it for many years thereafter...

as being too risky. Samuel approached the problem a different way: asking the company for the specifications of a tanker it would allow through the canal.

Armed with the canal companies specifications, Samuel had James Fortescue Flannery

James Fortescue Flannery

Sir James Fortescue Flannery, 1st Baronet was an English engineer and naval architect, and Liberal Unionist politician....

designing tankers for Bnito

Bnito

Bnito, or the Caspian and Black Sea Oil Company, was an oil business founded in 1883 by Alphonse Rothschild of the Rothschild banking family of France.In 1911, the company was acquired by Royal Dutch Shell....

— the Russian oil company of the Rothschilds — and ordered three tankers from William Gray in northern England. Named the Murex, the Conch and the Clam, each had a capacity of 5,010 long tons of deadweight. In 1893, the Samuel brothers founded the Tank Syndicate together with Fred Lane and Asian trading companies. In 1897 it was renamed Shell Transport and Trading company, forerunner of today's Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...

company.

With facilities prepared in Jakarta

Jakarta

Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

, Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Bangkok

Bangkok

Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...

, Saigon, Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

, and Kobe

Kobe

, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...

, the fledgling Shell company was ready to become Standard Oil's first challenger in the Asian market. On August 24, 1892, the Murex became the first tanker to pass through the Suez Canal.

In the meanwhile, in 1890 the Koninklijke Nederlandsche Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Petroleumbronnen in Nederlandsch-Indie (KNMEP) ("Royal Dutch Company for the Working of Petroleum Wells in the Dutch Indies") — part of Royal Dutch Petroleum — was founded. In 1892 it found oil near Pangkalan Brandan

Pangkalan Brandan

Pangkalan Brandan is a port town in North Sumatra province, Indonesia, forty miles north west of Medan, close to the boundary with Aceh. The area's population is estimated at around 21,000....

on Sumatra

Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...

, just some months before Samuels kerosene

Kerosene

arrived in Singapore. At first, chartered ships were used, but in 1896 KNMEP launched its first tankers, the Besitang and Berandan. The threat of the Tank Syndicate was reduced as the Dutch government excluded them from trading in the Dutch East Indies

Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....

. To prevent a hostile takeover

Takeover

In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company by another . In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to the acquisition of a private company.- Friendly takeovers :Before a bidder makes an offer for another...

by Standard Oil, preference shares

Preferred stock

Preferred stock, also called preferred shares, preference shares, or simply preferreds, is a special equity security that has properties of both an equity and a debt instrument and is generally considered a hybrid instrument...

were issued. By the time Shell merged with Royal Dutch Petroleum in 1907, the company had 34 steam-driven oil tankers. Standard Oil started building tankers the same way as Shell and by 1900 owned around 60 tankers.

From 1912 Compañía Mexicana de Petróleo El Aguila ("Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company

Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company

Compañía Mexicana de Petróleo El Aguila SA, , called in English the Mexican Eagle Oil Company or Mexican Eagle Petroleum Corporation, was a Mexican oil company in the 20th century.-History:Sir Weetman Pearson, Bart...

") — founded in 1909 by Weetman Pearson to develop the newly found Mexican oil fields, nationalized in 1938 as Pemex

Pemex

Petróleos Mexicanos or Pemex is a Mexican state-owned petroleum company. As of 2010, with a total asset worth of $415.75 billion, it is the second non-publicly listed largest company in the world by total market value, and Latin America's second largest enterprise by annual revenue as of 2009...

— also had its own tanker fleet. They quickly adopted Isherwood's

Joseph Isherwood

Sir Joseph William Isherwood, 1st Baronet was a British naval architect. He invented the Isherwood System of longitudinal construction of ships....

new longitudinal framing system that allowed much larger ships and a simpler construction process. Just before World War I it owned a fleet of 20 tankers. Standard Oil did not participate directly in the newly discovered oil fields in Texas — such as Spindletop

Spindletop

Spindletop is a salt dome oil field located in the southern portion of Beaumont, Texas in the United States. The Spindletop dome was derived from the Louann Salt evaporite layer of the Jurassic geologic period. On January 10, 1901, a well at Spindletop struck oil . The new oil field soon produced...

— and Oklahoma, which gave opportunities for new oil companies as Gulf Oil

Gulf Oil

Gulf Oil was a major global oil company from the 1900s to the 1980s. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies...

and Texas Fuel Company, later Texaco

Texaco

Texaco is the name of an American oil retail brand. Its flagship product is its fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owns the Havoline motor oil brand....

. Avoiding the use of Standard Oil's pipe line system, they started using tankers to get their oil to the East Coast

East Coast of the United States

The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...

. In combination with the oil fields discovered in Mexico and Venezuela, this caused a rise in the demand for tankers, which gave opportunities for the first independents, such as the Norwegian Wilh. Wilhelmsen

Wilhelmsen Lines

Wilh. Wilhelmsen Holding ASA is a global maritime industry group, headquartered in Lysaker, Norway. The group employs approximately 16,000 people and has operations in 73 nations....

, that launched its first tanker in 1913.

World War I and interbellum

The fleet oiler , launched on April 17, 1915, pioneered the technique of underway replenishment

Underway replenishment

Underway replenishment or replenishment at sea is a method of transferring fuel, munitions, and stores from one ship to another while under way.-History:...

. A large ship at the time, with a capacity of 14,500 long tons of deadweight, Maumee began refuelling destroyer

Destroyer

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

s en route to Britain at the outset of World War I. This technique enabled the Navy to keep its fleets at sea for extended periods, with a far greater range independent of the availability of a friendly port. This independence proved crucial to victory in World War II by the ships commanded by Fleet Admiral Nimitz

Chester Nimitz

Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz, GCB, USN was a five-star admiral in the United States Navy. He held the dual command of Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet , for U.S. naval forces and Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas , for U.S...

who, as Maumee’s executive officer

Executive officer

An executive officer is generally a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization.-Administrative law:...

, had played a key role in developing underway replenishment.

Underway replenishment was quickly adopted by other navies. One example of this is the Australian fleet oiler HMAS Kurumba

HMAS Kurumba

HMAS Kurumba was a oil tanker operated by the Royal Australian Navy from 1919 to 1946.Kurumba was built by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Wallsend for the RAN and was launched on 14 September 1916...

which provided underway replenishment services in the United Kingdom's Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

from 1917 to 1919.

During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, unrestricted submarine warfare

Unrestricted submarine warfare

Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare in which submarines sink merchantmen without warning, as opposed to attacks per prize rules...

caused a shortage of tankers. The United States ambassador to the United Kingdom, Walter Hines Page

Walter Hines Page

Walter Hines Page was an American journalist, publisher, and diplomat. He was the United States ambassador to the United Kingdom during World War I.-Biography:...

, wrote "The submarines are sinking freight ships faster than freight ships are being built by the whole world. In this way, too, then, the Germans are succeeding. Now if this goes on long enough, the Allies' game is up. For instance, they have lately sunk so many fuel oil ships, that this country may very soon be in a perilous condition — even the Grand Fleet may not have enough fuel". Georges Clemenceau

Georges Clemenceau

Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...

wrote to US president Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

"Gasoline is as vital as blood in the coming battles…a failure in the supply of gasoline would cause the immediate paralysis of our armies". Wilson reacted strongly. The War Shipping Board

United States Shipping Board

The United States Shipping Board was established as an emergency agency by the Shipping Act , 7 September 1916. It was formally organized 30 January 1917. It was sometimes referred to as the War Shipping Board.http://www.gwpda.org/wwi-www/Hurley/bridgeTC.htm | The Bridge To France by Edward N....

commandeered all ships in the United States and also took over all yards. An unprecedented budget of $US1.3 billion was used for this end. At Hog Island

Hog Island, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Hog Island is the historic name of an area southwest of the central part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania along the Delaware River, to the west of the mouth of the Schuylkill River. Philadelphia International Airport now sits on the land that was once Hog Island....

, the largest shipyard in the world was built, known for the Hog Islander

Hog Islander

Hog Islanders is the slang for ships built to Emergency Fleet Corporation designs number 1022 and 1024. These vessels were cargo and transport ships, respectively, built under government direction and subsidy to address a shortage of ships in the United States Merchant Marine during World War...

.

Between 1916 and 1921, 316 tankers were built with a total capacity of 3.2 million long tons of deadweight, where the entire world fleet before World War I was just above 2 million tons. In 1923 about 800,000 long tons were laid up, which gave enormous opportunities for speculators, such as Daniel Keith Ludwig. In 1925 he had bought the freighter Phoenix and put tanks in the holds. These rivet

Rivet

A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite the head is called the buck-tail. On installation the rivet is placed in a punched or pre-drilled hole, and the tail is upset, or bucked A rivet...

ed tanks leaked, which resulted in an explosive mixture

Flammability limit

Flammability limits, also called flammable limits, give the proportion of combustible gases in a mixture, between which limits this mixture is flammable. Gas mixtures consisting of combustible, oxidizing, and inert gases are only flammable under certain conditions. The lower flammable limit ...

. The resulting explosion killed two crew members and badly injured Ludwig. After this, he was a strong believer in welding

Welding

Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...

.

The transition of ships using oil in stead of coal, mass production of automobiles and aviation taking off, all resulted in an increased demand for oil and thus oil transport.

With the right connections at the Shipping Board, ships could be bought cheaply, which caused a lot of fraud. This system was too complicated for the oil companies however, so when World War II started, independents owned 39 percent of the world tanker fleet. This was especially because oil companies needed capital to invest in the growing oil market. By not buying the ships, but chartering, the bond rating of the oil companies was not affected, because the charter hire was not recognized as debt in that time. In 1934 H.T. Schierwater founded the International Tanker Owners’ Association — later International Association of Independent Tanker Owners

International Association of Independent Tanker Owners

International Association of Independent Tanker Owners is the association of the owner of the independent tankers in the world. It started in 1970 to speak out for the independent tankers' owners, non-oil companies and non-state controlled tanker owners, for the safe shipping of oil and...

or INTERTANKO — to protect the interests of thes companies in a strongly fluctuating market.

World War II

When World War II broke out in 1939, Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

could not support the United Kingdom directly, as in 1935 the Shipping Neutrality Act was signed to prevent Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

from invading Ethiopia. A solution was found by flagging out to Panama, which was under US control. The advantage for shipping companies was not having to comply with US regulations and not having to sail with US crew which were 50 percent more expensive than European crews at that time. In 1939 there were 52 tankers with a total capacity of 700,000 long tons of deadweight under Panamanian flag, a boost for flags of convenience

Flag of convenience

The term flag of convenience describes the business practice of registering a merchant ship in a sovereign state different from that of the ship's owners, and flying that state's civil ensign on the ship. Ships are registered under flags of convenience to reduce operating costs or avoid the...

.

The block construction method was invented in the United States, because German U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

s were sinking more ships than could be built with existing methods. By building in blocks and welding, the construction time could be reduced dramatically. Daniel Keith Ludwig had an important role in this, as he introduced the method at his Welding Shipyards in Norfolk

Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....

as part of the Emergency Shipbuilding program

Emergency Shipbuilding program

The Emergency Shipbuilding Program was a United States government effort to quickly build simple cargo ships to carry troops and materiel to allies and foreign theatres during World War II. Run by the U.S...

.

Particularly the T2 tanker

T2 tanker

The T2 tanker, or T2, was an oil tanker constructed and produced in large quantities in the United States during World War II. The largest "navy oilers" after the T3s at the time, nearly 500 of them were built between 1940 and the end of 1945....

played an important part in World War II. The T2-SE-A1 with a capacity of 16,613 long tons of deadweight, was the most popular variant with nearly 500 built during the war. After the war, these tankers were used commercially for decades, and many were sold on the international market.

In this period, the World Scale was introduced to determine freight tariffs.

Until 1956, tankers were designed to be able to navigate the Suez Canal

Suez Canal

The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...

. This size restriction became much less of a priority after the closing of the canal during the Suez Crisis

Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...

of 1956. Forced to move oil around the Cape of Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope

The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...

, shipowners realized that bigger tankers were the key to more efficient transport.

The supertanker era

Where the size of tankers had been more or less the same for 25 years, after World War II they have grown in size significantly, initially slowly. A typical T2 tanker of the World War II era was 532 feet (162.2 m) long and had a capacity of . A modern ultra-large crude carrier (ULCC) can be 1300 feet (396.2 m) long and have a capacity of . Several factors encouraged this growth. Hostilities in the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

which interrupted traffic through the Suez Canal contributed, as did nationalization of Middle East oil refineries

Oil refinery

An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...

. Fierce competition among shipowners also played a part. But apart from these considerations is a simple economic advantage: The larger an oil tanker is, the more cheaply it can move crude oil, and the better it can help meet growing demands for oil.

Where the refinery of oil had taken place near the well earlier, this moved to the consumer location during this stage. Oil production in the Middle East developed and the dominance of product tankers was replaced by crude oil carriers. Soon, Panamax

Panamax

Panamax and New Panamax are popular terms for the size limits for ships traveling through the Panama Canal. Formally, the limits and requirements are published by the Panama Canal Authority titled "Vessel Requirements"...

tankers were built, soon followed by Aframax

Aframax

An ' ship is an oil tanker smaller than and with a breadth above 32.31 m. The term is based on the Average Freight Rate Assessment tanker rate system. class tankers are largely used in the basins of the Black Sea, the North Sea, the Caribbean Sea, the China Sea and the Mediterranean...

and Suezmax

Suezmax

Suezmax is a naval architecture term for the largest ship measurements capable of transiting the Suez Canal, and is almost exclusively used in reference to tankers. Since the canal has no locks, the only serious limiting factors are draft , and height due to the Suez Canal Bridge...

tankers because of economics.

After the war, it was expected that a large number of tankers would be laid up, which indeed happened. The United States Maritime Commission

United States Maritime Commission

The United States Maritime Commission was an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, passed by Congress on June 29, 1936, and replaced the U.S. Shipping Board which had existed since World War I...

had replaced the War Shipping Board, but fraudulent activities remained. Onassis

Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Sokratis Onassis , commonly called Ari or Aristo Onassis, was a prominent Greek shipping magnate.- Early life :Onassis was born in Karatass, a suburb of Smyrna to Socrates and Penelope Onassis...

and Niarchos

Stavros Niarchos

Stavros Spyros Niarchos was a Greek shipping tycoon, sometimes known as "The Golden Greek." In 1952, Stavros Niarchos built the first supertankers capable of transporting large quantities of oil, and subsequently earned millions of dollars as global demand for his ships increased.- Early life :He...

used this to buy tankers cheaply. The expected economic decline did not come, due to reasons amongst others the Marshall plan

Marshall Plan

The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...

, with the demand for oil increasing to the point in 1947 that there was a shortage of tankers. Freight tariffs tripled overnight, enabling some to recoup their investment in one voyage.

Ludwig had started Universe Tankships in 1947 and began building larger tankers in his Welding Shipyards. The Bulkpetrol of 30,000 long tons was the largest tanker of its time. Four of the five Bulk class tankers sank, likely because welding technology was not yet fully understood. As larger ships could not be constructed in the yard at Norfolk, Ludwig went to Japan where he introduced the block construction method at the Kure Naval Yard

Kure Naval Arsenal

was one of four principal naval shipyards owned and operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy. -History:The Kure Naval District was established at Kure, Hiroshima in 1889, as the second of the naval districts responsible for the defense of the Japanese home islands along with the establishment of the...

. Here, in 1952, he built the Petrokure of 38,000 long tons. That same year, Onassis built a tanker of 45,000 long tons and also Niarchos constructed super tankers. Both Onassis and Niarchos claimed to be the largest independent tanker owner in the world.

The Sinclair Petrolore that Ludwig built in 1955, was at 56,000 long tons not only the largest freighter in the world, but also a self-unloading ore-oil carrier, the only one of that type ever built. It exploded on 6 December 1960 near Brazil — likely because of cargo leakage in the double bottom — resulting in the largest spill until then with 60,000 tons.

In 1956, the Universe Leader of 85,000 long tons was built just before the Suez Crisis

Suez Crisis

started with the seizure of the Pannegia . In ten years time, tanker size had quadrupled. In 1958, Ludwig broke the barrier of 100,000 long tons of heavy displacement. His Universe Apollo displaced 104,500 long tons, a 23% increase from the Universe Leader.

In 1962 Niarchos built the of 106,000 long tons. This was the largest merchant vessel ever built in the United States. It was converted to have ice breaking capacities in 1969 and was the first commercial ship to cross the Northwest Passage

Northwest Passage

The Northwest Passage is a sea route through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways amidst the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans...

. Although the voyage was a success, a second attempt to cross the passage in winter proved impossible, and there were numerous environmental concerns with the project, so it was cancelled and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

The Trans Alaska Pipeline System , includes the Trans Alaska Pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one of the world's largest pipeline systems...

built.

In 1966, the Idemitsu Maru of 206,000 long tons was built. In twenty years, the size of tankers had increased tenfold.

Closure Suez Canal

The oil spill caused by the Torrey Canyon

Torrey Canyon

The Torrey Canyon was a supertanker capable of carrying a cargo of 120,000 tons of crude oil, which was shipwrecked off the western coast of Cornwall, England in March 1967 causing an environmental disaster...

in 1967 caused a public awareness about the environmental dangers of oil tankers. Oil companies united in 1970 in the Oil Companies International Marine Forum

Oil Companies International Marine Forum

The Oil Companies International Marine Forum is a voluntary association of oil companies having an interest in the shipment and terminalling of crude oil and oil products....

to become involved in the following issuing of rules such as MARPOL 73

MARPOL 73/78

Marpol 73/78 is the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution From Ships, 1973 as modified by the Protocol of 1978....

. In 1968 also the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation was founded to indemnify the victims.

For tanker owners, the Six-Day War

Six-Day War

The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...

of 1967 was of greater importance however. The Suez Canal

Suez Canal

closed until 1975 and freight rates sky rocketed because of the shortage of tonnage now ships had to pass the Cape of Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope

. Even larger tankers were now built, as the limitations of the Suez Canal were not governing anymore. In only a couple of years the size of tankers quadrupled to more than 500,000 long tons and there were even plans for tankers of 1,000,000 long tons. In 1969 the first ULCC's were built.

The world's largest supertanker ever was built for Tung Chao Yung

Tung Chao Yung

Tung Chao Yung better known as 董浩雲, , born 18th of the eighth lunar month in 1912; died 15 April 1982), also known as C. Y. Tung, was a Chinese shipping magnate, the founder of the Orient Overseas Line...

in 1979 at the Oppama Shipyard of Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. as the Seawise Giant. This ship was built with a capacity of , a length overall of 458.45 metres (1,504.1 ft) and a draft of 24.611 metres (80.7 ft). She has 46 tanks, 31541 square metres (339,504.5 sq ft) of deck, and is too large to pass through the English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

.

Seawise Giant was renamed Happy Giant in 1989, Jahre Viking in 1991. From 1979 to 2004, she was owned by Loki Stream, at which point she was bought by First Olsen Tankers

First Olsen Tankers

First Olsen Tankers Ltd AS is a Norwegian shipping company owned by Ganger Rolf ASA and Bonheur and affiliated with Fred. Olsen & Co. The company is registered in Bermuda....

, renamed Knock Nevis

Knock Nevis

Seawise Giant, later Happy Giant, Jahre Viking, and Knock Nevis, was a ULCC supertanker and the longest ship ever built, and possessed the greatest deadweight tonnage ever recorded...

and converted into a permanently moored storage tanker. The Batillus class supertankers

Batillus class supertankers

The Batillus-class supertanker is a class of the biggest ships by gross tonnage ever constructed. At , and 414-metres, the four vessels were built in the Louis Joubert Lock, and launched from the shipyards of Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint Nazaire, France at the end of the 1970s.The only other...

are the biggest ships ever constructed by gross tonnage.

Although the tanker fleet increased around 12 percent annually around 1970, a shortage on tonnage remained. In 1973 this resulted in an enormous increase in new building orders, especially from oil majors that wanted to gain on the quicker deciding independents, who could ask enormous rates for their vessels. Where the existing tanker fleet comprised some 150 million long tons, in a quarter of a year a tonnage of 75 million was ordered, although new build prices doubled.

The increase in scale brought a new problem. Until then, the washing of tanks after cargo discharge was done by water. In December 1969 three tankers exploded during tank washing. The Dutch Shell tanker Marpessa sank off Dakar and became the largest merchant vessel ever lost. The other two, the British Shell tanker Mactra en the Norwegian Kong Haakon VII were damaged heavily, but remained afloat. Shell investigated the matter and came to the conclusion that water drops that impact steel with high velocity generates static electricity

Static electricity

Static electricity refers to the build-up of electric charge on the surface of objects. The static charges remain on an object until they either bleed off to ground or are quickly neutralized by a discharge. Static electricity can be contrasted with current electricity, which can be delivered...

that can cause explosions in combination with cargo vapors. This only became apparent with the large sizes of the tanks of VLCC's.

The solution was found by filling the cargo tanks with inert gas

Inert gas

An inert gas is a non-reactive gas used during chemical synthesis, chemical analysis, or preservation of reactive materials. Inert gases are selected for specific settings for which they are functionally inert since the cost of the gas and the cost of purifying the gas are usually a consideration...

(IG), reducing the oxygen level such that the tank remains below the explosive limit

Flammability limit

. The use of IG is seen as the biggest step in increasing tanker safety. Ten years later however, fifty people were killed when the Betelgeuse

Betelgeuse incident

The Betelgeuse incident, also known as the Betelgeuse or Whiddy Island disaster, occurred on 8 January 1979, at around 1:00 a.m., when the oil tanker Betelgeuse exploded in West Cork, Ireland, at the offshore jetty of the Whiddy Island Oil Terminal, due to the failure of the ship's structure...

exploded at Whiddy Island

Whiddy Island

Whiddy Island is an island near the head of Bantry Bay, Ireland. It is approximately long and wide. The topography comprises gently-rolling glacial till, with relatively fertile soil...

in Bantry Bay

Bantry Bay

Bantry Bay is a bay located in County Cork, southwest Ireland. The bay runs approximately from northeast to southwest into the Atlantic Ocean. It is approximately 3-to-4 km wide at the head and wide at the entrance....

. The Total

Total S.A.

Total S.A. is a French multinational oil company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world.Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and...

tanker was still not fitted with inert gas. The Energy Concentration did have this system, preventing an explosion when it broke in two on 21 July 1980 during discharge at Europoort

Europoort

Europoort is an area of the Port of Rotterdam and the adjoining industrial area in the Netherlands. Being situated at the mouth of the rivers Rhine and Meuse with the hinterland consisting of the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and partly France, Europoort is by certain measurements the world's...

. It has also saved many lives during the Tanker War.

Washing with water in combination with the Load on Top system was replaced by crude oil washing

Crude oil washing

Crude oil washing is washing out the residue from the tanks of an oil tanker using the crude oil cargo itself, after the cargo tanks have been emptied. Crude Oil is pumped back and preheated in the slop tanks, then sprayed back via high pressure nozzles in the cargo tanks on to the walls of the...

(COW), a method developed by BP

BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...

. The advantages were cleaner tanks, no corrosive sea water in cargo tanks and no polluted sea water being pumped overboard.

Oil Crisis and consolidation

On 10 October 1973 the Yom Kippur War

Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...

begun, causing the 1973 oil crisis

1973 oil crisis

The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...

, tripling oil prices to US$10 per barrel, halting economic growth. New build ships sometimes went straight from the yard to lay up. The situation worsened when the Suez Canal was reopened in 1975. Just when the situation begun to improve in 1979, the Iranian Revolution

Iranian Revolution

The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...

caused the second oil crisis

1979 energy crisis

The 1979 oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979 and the Ayatollah Khomeini soon became the new leader of Iran. Protests severely disrupted the Iranian oil...

, causing oil prices to rise to US$30. Ships were sometimes sent to the breakers

Ship breaking

Ship breaking or ship demolition is a type of ship disposal involving the breaking up of ships for scrap recycling. Most ships have a lifespan of a few decades before there is so much wear that refitting and repair becomes uneconomical. Ship breaking allows materials from the ship, especially...

after being in service for only ten years. It took until the end of the 1980s before any profits were being made in oil transport.

In 1979, World-Wide Shipping of Yue-Kong Pao

Yue-Kong Pao

Sir Yue-Kong Pao CBE, JP , often referred to as "Sir Y.K. Pao" or just "Y.K.", was the founder of Hong Kong's World-Wide Shipping Group which in the 20 years from purchasing its first second-hand ship in 1955 became by far the largest shipping company in the world with over...

with 204 vessels, many of them tankers, was the largest shipping company in the world with a tonnage of 20.5 million, but in the five years after that he sold some 140 vessels to manage the crisis. In 1980 Daniel K. Ludwig had the largest fleet after Y. K. Pao and C. Y. Tung and was regarded the richest man of the United States. Currently, John Fredriksen

John Fredriksen

John Fredriksen, is a Norwegian-born Cypriot oil tanker and shipping tycoon, owner of the world's largest oil tanker fleet, and was Norway's richest man until he chose to abandon his Norwegian citizenship and take up a Cypriot passport. Norwegian magazine Kapital listed Fredriksen in 2010 with a...

owns the largest tanker operator in the world, Frontline

Frontline Ltd.

Frontline Ltd. is one of the world's largest oil tanker shipping companies, based in Hamilton, Bermuda and controlled by John Fredriksen. Its primary business is transporting crude oil...

. He also owns almost ten percent of the largest shipping company in the world, Overseas Shipholding Group

Overseas Shipholding Group

Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc. is one of the largest oil tanker operating companies in the world. It is based in New York City....

In 1976, the Intervention Convention was used for the first time when the US Coast Guard

United States Coast Guard

The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...

took on the salvage

Marine salvage

Marine salvage is the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo, or other property from peril. Salvage encompasses rescue towing, refloating a sunken or grounded vessel, or patching or repairing a ship...

of the Argo Merchant

Argo Merchant

MV Argo Merchant was a Liberian-flagged oil tanker built by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in Hamburg, Germany in 1953, most noted for running aground and subsequent sinking southeast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, causing one of the largest marine oil spills in history...

, although the vessel was in international waters

International waters

The terms international waters or trans-boundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regional seas and estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwater systems , and wetlands.Oceans,...

. This was the first time the monopoly of flag states

Flag State

The flag state of a commercial vessel is the state under whose laws the vessel is registered or licensed.The flag state has the authority and responsibility to enforce regulations over vessels registered under its flag, including those relating to inspection, certification, and issuance of safety...

was broken through.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill

Exxon Valdez oil spill

The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled of crude oil. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused...

was the incentive to introduce legislation requiring tankers to have a double hull

Double hull

A double hull is a ship hull design and construction method invented by Leonardo da Vinci where the bottom and sides of the ship have two complete layers of watertight hull surface: one outer layer forming the normal hull of the ship, and a second inner hull which is some distance inboard,...

, a measure that is not seen as the best solution by all experts. Where a double hull should minimize the consequenses after a disaster, Concordia Maritime developed the Stena V-MAX, a VLCC with two propellers, two rudders and two redundant engine rooms, where a single fault does not result in loss of steering, reducing the chances of a grounding.

The size of VLCC's and ULCC's limits their sailing area and available ports. In the United States, Louisiana Offshore Oil Port

Louisiana Offshore Oil Port

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port is a deepwater port in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana near the town of Port Fourchon. LOOP provides tanker offloading and temporary storage services for crude oil transported on some of the largest tankers in the world. Most tankers offloading at LOOP...

(LOOP) is the only facility that is able to handle VLCC's. To overcome this, lightering

Lightering

Lightering is the process of transferring cargo between vessels of different sizes, usually between a barge and a bulker or oil tanker. Lightering is undertaken to reduce a vessel's draft in order to enter port facilities which cannot accept very large ocean-going vessels...

from large tankers in smaller ones that are able to reach the destination port. The largest oil terminal is Ras Tanura

Ras Tanura

Ras Tanura is a city in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia located on a peninsula extending into the Persian Gulf...

in Saudi Arabia.

ULCC's had not been built since the beginning of the 1980s until the Greek Hellespont Steamship Corporation ordered four double hull supertankers in 1999. These ships were built in 2002 and 2003 as the Hellespont Alhambra, Hellespont Metropolis, Hellespont Tara and Fairfax. Hellespont sold these ships to Overseas Shipholding Group

Overseas Shipholding Group

Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc. is one of the largest oil tanker operating companies in the world. It is based in New York City....

and Euronav

Euronav

Euronav is an independent tanker company engaged in the ocean transportation of crude oil and petroleum products. The company is compliant with the International Safety Management Code requirements, which assure a high level of safety and environmental protection...

in 2004. These TI class supertankers — currently known as the TI Asia, TI Europe, TI Oceania, and TI Africa — are as of 2008 the worlds four largest working supertankers.

Each of the four sister ships has a capacity of over , a length overall of 380 metres (1,246.7 ft) and a cargo capacity of 3166353 barrels (503,409,898.5 l). The first ULCC tankers to be built for some 25 years, they were also the first ULCCs to be double-hulled. To differentiate them from smaller ULCCs, these ships are sometimes given the V-Plus size designation. In February 2008, their owners announced plans to convert TI Africa and the TI Asia into stationary floating storage and offloading units to be placed in the Al Shaheen oilfield near Qatar

Qatar

Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...

in late 2009.

With the exception of the pipeline, the tanker is the most cost-effective way to move oil today. Worldwide, tankers carry some 2 Goilbbl annually, and the cost of transportation by tanker amounts to only US$0.02 per gallon at the pump.

Flags of convenience

The first open register was Panama in 1916. Fear for political instability and high and excessive consular fees led the president of Liberia

Liberia

Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...

, William Tubman

William Tubman

William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman was a Liberian politician. He was the 19th President of Liberia from 1944 until his death in 1971....

, in 1948 to start an open register with the help of Edward Stettinius, Jr.

Edward Stettinius, Jr.

Edward Reilly Stettinius, Jr. was United States Secretary of State under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, serving from 1944 to 1945....

. The World Peace of Stavros Niarchos

Stavros Niarchos

was the first ship in that register. In 1967 Liberia passed the United Kingdom as the largest register. Nowadays, Panama — currently the largest register — and Liberia have one third of the world fleet under their flag.

Flags of convenience

Flag of convenience

have lower standards for vessel, equipment, and crew the traditional maritime countries and often have classification societies certify and inspect the vessels in their registry, instead of by their own shipping authority. This made it attractive for ship owners to change flag, whereby the ship lost the economic link and the country of registry. With this, also the link between classification society and traditional maritime country became less obvious - for instance Lloyd's

Lloyd's Register

The Lloyd's Register Group is a maritime classification society and independent risk management organisation providing risk assessment and mitigation services and management systems certification. Historically, as Lloyd's Register of Shipping, it was a specifically maritime organisation...

with the United Kingdom and ABS

American Bureau of Shipping

The American Bureau of Shipping is a classification society, with a mission to promote the security of life, property and the natural environment, primarily through the development and verification of standards for the design, construction and operational maintenance of marine-related facilities...

with the United States. This made it easier to change class and introduced a new phenomena; class hopping. A ship owner that is dissatisfied with class can change to a different class relatively easily. This has led to more competition between classes and a relaxation of the rules. This has led to the shipping industry losing confidence in the classification societies, but also by the European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

.

To counteract class hopping, the IACS

International Association of Classification Societies

The International Association of Classification Societies is a technically-based organization consisting of thirteen marine classification societies headquartered in London.-History:...

has established TOCA (Transfer Of Class Agreement).

In 1978, a number of European countries agreed in The Hague on a memorandum that agreed to audit whether the labour conditions on board vessels were according the rules of the ILO

International Labour Organization

The International Labour Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with labour issues pertaining to international labour standards. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. Its secretariat — the people who are employed by it throughout the world — is known as the...

. After the Amoco Cadiz

Amoco Cadiz

Amoco Cadiz was a very large crude carrier , owned by Amoco, that ran aground on Portsall Rocks, from the coast of Brittany, France, on 16 March 1978, and ultimately split in three and sank, all together resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date.-Oil spill:Amoco Cadiz...

sank that year, it was decided to also audit on safety and pollution. To this end, in 1982 the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (Paris MoU) was agreed upon, establishing Port State Control

Port State Control

Port State Control is the inspection of foreign ships in other national ports by PSC officers for the purpose of verifying that the competency of the master and officers on board, the condition of a ship and its equipment comply with the requirements of international conventions Port State...

, nowadays consisting of 24 European countries and Canada. In practice, this was a reaction on the failure of the flag states - especially flags of convenience that have delegated their task to classification societies

Classification society

A classification society is a non-governmental organization that establishes and maintains technical standards for the construction and operation of ships and offshore structures...

- to comply with their inspection duties.

External links

Bill Willis. Supertankers
Intertanko - the society of International Tanker Operators
The International Maritime Organization - Tanker Safety (for double-hulls)

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

The Nobel Brothers

Breaking the Standard Oil monopoly

World War I and interbellum

World War II

The supertanker era

Closure Suez Canal

Oil Crisis and consolidation

Flags of convenience

See also

External links