The TTSeawise Giant—earlier Oppama; later Happy Giant, Jahre Viking, Knock Nevis, and Mont—was a ULCC supertanker and the longest self-propelled ship in history, built in 1974–1979 by Sumitomo Heavy Industries in Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan. She possessed the greatest deadweight tonnage ever recorded. Fully laden, her displacement was 657,019 tonnes.
A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usually specially designed for the task, often being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all sizes. Today, they are almost always built of welded steel, and with some exceptions generally have a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years before being scrapped.
A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are used for military purposes.
A floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is a floating vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the production and processing of hydrocarbons, and for the storage of oil. An FPSO vessel is designed to receive hydrocarbons produced by itself or from nearby platforms or subsea template, process them, and store oil until it can be offloaded onto a tanker or, less frequently, transported through a pipeline. FPSOs are preferred in frontier offshore regions as they are easy to install, and do not require a local pipeline infrastructure to export oil. FPSOs can be a conversion of an oil tanker or can be a vessel built specially for the application. A vessel used only to store oil is referred to as a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel.
A tanker is a ship designed to transport or store liquids or gases in bulk. Major types of tankship include the oil tanker, the chemical tanker, cargo ships, and a gas carrier. Tankers also carry commodities such as vegetable oils, molasses and wine. In the United States Navy and Military Sealift Command, a tanker used to refuel other ships is called an oiler but many other navies use the terms tanker and replenishment tanker. Tankers were first developed in the late 19th century as iron and steel hulls and pumping systems were developed. As of 2005, there were just over 4,000 tankers and supertankers 10,000 LT DWT or greater operating worldwide.
The Whiddy Island disaster, also known as the Betelgeuse incident or Betelgeuse disaster, occurred on 8 January 1979, around 1:00 am, when the oil tanker Betelgeuse exploded in Bantry Bay, at the offshore jetty for the oil terminal at Whiddy Island, Ireland. The explosion was attributed to the failure of the ship's structure during an operation to discharge its cargo of oil. The tanker was owned by Total S.A., and the oil terminal was owned by Gulf Oil.
The Batillus-class supertankers were a class of supertanker ships built in France in the late 1970s, with four ships of this class built between 1976 and 1979. Three of the ships were scrapped after less than ten years of oil transport service each, with the fourth one scrapped in 2003.
The Batillus was a supertanker built in 1976 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire for the French branch of Shell Oil. The first vessel of the Batillus class, she was, together with her sister ships Bellamya, Pierre Guillaumat and Prairial, one of the biggest ships in the world, surpassed in size only by Seawise Giant built in 1976, and extended in 1981, although the four ships of the Batillus class had a larger gross tonnage. She was sold for scrap in 1985 after a prolonged downturn in the oil market made her economically impractical.
The Bellamya was a supertanker, built in 1976 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire for the French branch of Shell Oil. She was the second Batillus class supertanker. Bellamya, together with her sister ships Batillus, Pierre Guillaumat and Prairial, was one of the biggest ships in the world, surpassed in size only by Seawise Giant built in 1976, and extended in 1981, although the four ships of the Batillus class had a larger gross tonnage. If size is indicated by gross tonnage—a measure of volume—Bellamya was the largest ship ever built.
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries. Product tankers, generally much smaller, are designed to move refined products from refineries to points near consuming markets.
The history of the oil tanker is part of the evolution of the technology of oil transportation alongside the oil industry.
Oil tankers generally have from 8 to 12 tanks. Each tank is split into two or three independent compartments by fore-and-aft bulkheads. The tanks are numbered with tank one being the forwardmost. Individual compartments are referred to by the tank number and the athwartships position, such as "one port", "three starboard", or "six center."
The Prairial was a supertanker, built in 1979 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire for Compagnie Nationale de Navigation. Prairial, which was the fourth and final vessel of Batillus class supertankers. She was the only ship of that class to have a career longer than ten years, sailing until 2003, although under different names: Sea Brilliance (1985), Hellas Fos (1986) and Sea Giant (1997). She is also distinguished as the third biggest ship ever constructed, surpassed in size only by Seawise Giant built in 1976 and subsequently lengthened, and her sister ship Pierre Guillaumat.
The Pierre Guillaumat was a supertanker built in 1977 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire for Compagnie Nationale de Navigation. It was the third vessel of Batillus class supertankers and distinguished for being the biggest ship ever constructed. It was surpassed in length, deadweight tonnage and displacement only by Seawise Giant, which, though it was originally smaller when it was built in 1976, was subsequently lengthened and enlarged.
The two ships of the U.S.T. Atlantic class, the U.S.T. Atlantic and U.S.T. Pacific, were the largest ships ever built in the Western Hemisphere.
Cosmo Ace, formerly A Whale and Madison Orca, is a Liberian-flagged ore-oil carrier built in 2010 by Hyundai Heavy Industries, Ulsan, South Korea for TMT Co. Ltd. from the Republic of China (Taiwan). She has seven other sister ships in the fleet, built in 2010-2011 and named in succession: B Whale, C Whale etc., to H Whale.
The Venpet–Venoil collision was a maritime accident involving sister supertankers; the Liberian-registered Venoil and Venpet, in dense fog off the coast of South Africa on 16 December 1977. The tankers were travelling in opposite directions; the Venoil fully laden with over 250,000 tonnes of crude oil bound for Halifax, Canada, and the Venpet, travelling in ballast, headed for Kharg Island, Iran. The Venoil ploughed into the Venpet, eventually leading to the spilling of approximately 26,600–30,500 tonnes of crude oil. The tankers were sister ships owned and operated by Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Both ships were manned by Taiwanese crews.
The Yemen Oil and Gas Corporation, a government-owned corporation under the direction of the Ministry of Oil and Minerals of Yemen, is an oil and natural gas exploration and production company headquartered in Sana'a. It was established in 1996.
FSO Nabarima is a floating storage and offloading vessel that is permanently moored offshore of Venezuela at the Corocoro oil field in the Gulf of Paria, located between Venezuela and the island of Trinidad. After production at Corocoro ceased in 2019 following United States sanctions on the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and following years of neglect, Nabarima fell into a state of disrepair, and was reported in 2020 to be at risk of spilling her cargo of about 1.3 million barrels of crude oil.
