Tanker Chartering Chapter 1

Primary recovery of Oil

Uses natural reservoir pressure

Secondary recovery

Injects water or gas to hold up reservoir pressure

Enhanced recovery

Uses steam, chemicals or CO2 to lift more of the remainder

First steps in finding oil

Seismic surveys, then exploratory drilling

Subsea wells are tied back to what?

FPSOs

Crude is exported from the field by

Pipeline, or loaded at a terminal, SPM or FPSO

What is FPSO

floating production and storage vessel

Lighter, more valuable products

Conversion units (examples)

Catalytic cracking, hydrocracking, coking, visbreaking, reforming

What does reforming do?

Raises the octane of naphtha

What does treating do?

Removes sulphur

Refinery gas / LPG boiling range

Below about 30°C

Naphtha / gasoline boiling range

About 30 to 200°C

Kerosene boiling range

About 150 to 270°C

Gas oil / diesel boiling range

About 250 to 350°C

Residue boiling range

Above about 350°C

Uses of refinery gas / LPG

LPG, refinery fuel, petrochemical feedstock

Uses of naphtha / gasoline

Petrol (mogas), petrochemical feedstock

Uses of kerosene

Jet fuel, heating kerosene

Uses of gas oil / diesel

Road and marine diesel, heating oil

Uses of residue

Fuel oil, bunkers, bitumen, feed to vacuum and conversion units

Refinery by-products (examples)

Petroleum coke, sulphur, bitumen, lube base oils, waxes, hydrogen

Petrochemical feedstocks from refining

Naphtha and LPG

Topping / hydroskimming refinery has

Distillation, reforming and treating only

Heavy crude in a topping refinery gives

A lot of fuel oil

Cracking refinery adds

Catalytic cracking (gas oils to gasoline and diesel)

Complex refinery has

Coking / hydrocracking

Complex refinery converts

Almost all the residue into light products

Which refinery can run cheap heavy sour crude?

Complex refinery

Light sweet crude: API and sulphur

High API gravity, low sulphur

Light sweet crude yields more

Naphtha and middle distillates

Light sweet crude examples

Brent, WTI, Bonny Light

Heavy sour crude: API and sulphur

Low API gravity, high sulphur

Heavy sour crude yields more

Residue

Refinery configuration decides

Which crudes it can run

Regional price gaps in products create

Arbitrage cargoes

MR deadweight

32,000 to 50,000 dwt

MR LOA

190 m

MR beam

32 m

MR laden draught

13 m

MR typical cargo size

Clean products, 200,000 to 400,000 bbl

Panamax deadweight

65,000 to 75,000 dwt

Panamax LOA

About 230 m

Panamax beam

About 32 m

Panamax laden draught

14 m

Panamax typical cargo

Clean or dirty products, crude

LR1 deadweight

65,000 to 75,000 dwt

LR1 LOA

About 230 m

LR1 beam

About 32 m

LR1 laden draught

14 m

LR1 typical cargo

Clean or dirty products, crude

LR2 deadweight

80,000 to 120,000 dwt

LR2 LOA

About 245 to 253 m

LR2 beam

About 42 to 44 m

LR2 laden draught

About 14 to 15 m

LR2 typical cargo size

About 600,000 to 750,000 bbl

Aframax deadweight

95,000 to 120,000 dwt

Aframax LOA

250 m

Aframax beam

44 m

Aframax laden draught

14.6 m

Suezmax deadweight

150,000 dwt

Suezmax LOA

About 270 to 285 m

Suezmax beam

About 48 to 50 m

Suezmax laden draught

About 16 to 17 m

Suezmax typical cargo size

About 1 million bbl

VLGC deadweight

50,000 to 70,000 dwt

VLGC LOA

226 m

VLGC beam

35 m

VLGC laden draught

11 m

VLGC typical cargo

Propane (-42), butane (-5), ammonia (-33)

LPG LGC deadweight

4,800 dwt

LPG LGC LOA

93 m

LPG LGC beam

17.6 m

LPG LGC laden draught

4.2 m

LPG LGC typical cargo

Butane, butadiene, propane, VCM

LNG Moss deadweight

66,500 dwt

LNG Moss LOA

290 m

LNG Moss beam

42 m

LNG Moss laden draught

10 m

VLCC deadweight

300,000 to 320,000 dwt

VLCC LOA

About 330 m

VLCC beam

About 58 to 60 m

VLCC laden draught

About 20 to 21 m

VLCC typical cargo size

About 2 million bbl

ULCC deadweight

320,000 to 550,000 dwt

ULCC LOA

About 400 to 415 m

ULCC beam

About 63 m and over

ULCC laden draught

About 24 m and over

ULCC typical cargo size

3 to 4 million bbl

Largest ship ever built

Seawise Giant, about 565,000 dwt

Most ULCCs today are used for

Storage

LR1 is the clean-product equivalent of

Panamax

LR2 is the clean-product equivalent of

Aframax

Workhorse product tanker

MR

Aframax name comes from

AFRA (Average Freight Rate Assessment) scale

Why are Aframaxes useful?

They can enter most of the world's ports

Suezmax

Roughly the largest laden tanker able to transit the Suez Canal

Suezmax is limited mainly by

Draught and beam

Panamax

Sized to the old Panama Canal locks

Panamax beam limit

About 32.3 m