Understanding Design of Oil Tanker Ships

Tankers have been one of the oldest types of merchant ships; the need for these
vessels arising due to heterogeneous distribution of natural oil reserves and liquid
chemicals around the globe.

The most common types of tankers operating at sea are oil tankers. While it may
seem that oil tankers generally carry oil, the fact has quite more to it, if understood in
detail. Which brings us to the need to understand that since there are different
grades of oil (depending on the levels of purification), oil tankers have been designed
separately and specifically to carry different oil types.

Based on size, oil tankers have been categorised into the following types:

1. Small Range (Product) Tanker: 10,000 to 60,000 tons DWT.

2. Panamax Tanker: 60,000 to 78,000 tons DWT.
3. Aframax (Average Freight Rate Assessment) Tanker: 80,000 to 1,20,000
tons DWT.
4. Suezmax Tanker: 1,20,000 to 2,00,000 tons DWT.
5. VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier): 2,00,000 to 3,20,000 DWT.
6. ULCC (Ultra Large Crude Carrier): 3,20,000 to 5,50,000 DWT.

Product Tankers:

These tankers are designed to carry hydrocarbon products like kerosene, gasoline, paraffin,
etc., chemical products like ammonia, monomers, etc., wines, molasses, etc. Though, now,
chemical tankers, LPG and LNG carriers are classified differently due to significant uniqueness
in their designs as compared to petroleum product tankers. Product tankers are usually short
range coastal tankers, hence are smaller in capacity. They carry products from processing
plants to distribution units.

Crude Oil Carriers:

Crude oil carriers are designed to transport crude oil from rigs to processing units
(refineries). Since the amount of crude oil extracted from offshore drilling platforms is
considerably larger than the amount of products extracted from it, crude oil tankers
are required to be of sizes larger than product tankers. Sizes like that of VLCCs and
ULCCs are only used for crude oil tankers, and these are usually ships that ply on
long range voyages.

Chemical Tankers:

Chemical products like ammonia, palm oil, vegetable oils, monomers, caustic soda, methanol,
etc. These ships have considerable uniqueness in their design, owing to the special
requirements depending on the type of cargo. We will discuss these aspects in a later part of
this article when we discuss design of different tankers. Chemical tankers are usually
categorised into three types:
Type 1: These tankers are designed to carry products that are associated with severe
environmental and safety related hazards. Such products require maximum prevention of
spill.

Type 2: They are also designed for hazardous products, but the extent of severity for these
products is lesser as compared to Type 1.

Type 3: These are designed to carry chemical cargo that requires moderate standards of
containment and pose moderate environmental and safety hazards.

LNG and LPG Carriers:

These ships actually fall under the category of liquefied gas carriers, and a large number of
them are in service to carry liquefied gases in bulk. The number of ships that carry Liquefied
Petroleum Gas (LPG) is however, much more than the number of ships carrying Liquefied
Natural Gas (LNG). We shall look into some of their design aspects in another article to
understand what makes them very unique from other types of tankers.

With an overview of the different types of tankers and each of their functionality, we will now
look into the important design aspects of each of them. It is important for you to keep in
mind from now, to observe how every design decision that is made, is directly or indirectly
related to a functional aspect of the ship. We will relate every design aspect with the inter-
related functional or market-based reason that governs

Design Aspects of Oil Tankers

Hull form:

The most notable feature of any ship is the geometry and form of its
hull. The design of an oil tanker is a weight-based design, which means,
the dimensions of an oil tanker would be governed by the weight of
cargo to be carried.

The other type of design is volume-based design, where the dimensions

of the ship are determined by the volume of cargo spaces required in the
vessel. For example, container ships.

Since the weight of oil to be carried in a single voyage is to be

maximised, it is preferable to have maximum spaces for cargo oil tanks.
Also, oil tankers ply at very low speeds since the cargo is not perishable.
Both the aforementioned factors come together to determine the full-
form shape of an oil tanker. In other words, an oil tanker would have
higher Coefficient of Buoyancy as compared to ships of finer hull form
(e.g. container ships).
What is Block Coefficient (CB) of a ship?

The block coefficient (CB) of a ship is the ratio of the underwater

volume of a ship to the volume of the circumscribing block.

Since the ship’s volume of displacement is less than the volume of

displacement of the surrounding block, the value of C B must always be less
than 1.00.
 Figure 2: Hull forms of oil tanker (full-form) and container ship (fine-form).
 Note, in Figure 2, the fullness of the hull form of an oil tanker at the forward part,
compared to that of a container ship. Unlike a streamlined fine hull form, this shape
caters well to low speeds and maximum cargo capacity. However, the blunt forward
shape gives rise to eddy and wave-breaking at the forward part, resulting in
increased wave-breaking and eddy-making resistance.

General Arrangement:

The most important design drawing that is to be studied in order to identify the
design of a ship, is its General Arrangement Drawing. Figure 3 illustrates the profile
view of an oil tanker’s general arrangement. It basically shows the arrangement of all
the spaces within the ship, and gives a frame-by-frame location of every space,
bulkheads, and other primary structures.
 Figure 3: General Arrangement (Profile view of a product oil tanker)
 

Some of the design details of an oil tanker will be well understood by referring to the
profile view. The cargo oil tanks (C.O.Ts) are usually equally sized, and the
dimensions of each are decided by the designer in the initial stage of design,
depending on the total weight of oil to be carried by the ship. The access to each
COT is separate, and is provided by means of rung ladders or hoist-able steps from
the main deck.

The main deck of an oil tanker is usually mounted with a network of pipelines that
are used to load and unload cargo oil to and from the ship. Flexible hoses are
attached to the pipelines for completion of the process.