An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and is hydrophobic but soluble in organic solvents. Oils have a high carbon and hydrogen content and are nonpolar substances. The general definition above includes compound classes with otherwise unrelated chemical structures, properties and uses, including vegetable oils,. There are two basic types of oil tankers: the crude tanker and the product tanker.[2] Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, and other organic compounds, that is found in geologic formations beneath the earth's surface from its point of extraction to refineries.[2] Product tankers, generally much smaller, are designed to move petrochemicals Petrochemicals are chemical products derived from petroleum. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas, or renewable sources such as corn or sugar cane from refineries to points near consuming markets.
Oil tankers are often classified by their size as well as their occupation. The size classes range from inland or coastal tankers of a few thousand metric tons of deadweight Deadweight tonnage is a measure of how much weight a ship is carrying or can safely carry. It is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provisions, passengers, and crew. The term is often used to specify a ship's maximum permissible deadweight, the DWT when the ship is fully loaded so that its Plimsoll line is at the (DWT) to the mammoth ULCCs of 550,000 DWT. Tankers move approximately 2,000,000,000 metric tons The tonne or metric ton (U.S.), also referred to as a metric tonne, is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kg (2,204.62262 lb) or approximately the mass of one cubic metre of water at four degrees Celsius. It is sometimes abbreviated as mt in the United States, but this conflicts with other SI symbols. The tonne is not a unit in the International System (2.2046×109 short tons The short ton is a unit of weight equal to 2,000 pounds . In the United States it is often called simply ton without distinguishing it from the metric ton (tonne, 1,000 kilograms) or the long ton (2,240 pounds/1,016.0469088 kilograms); rather, the other two are specifically noted. There are, however, some U.S. applications for which unspecified) of oil every year.[3][4] Second only to pipelines in terms of efficiency,[4] the average cost of oil transport by tanker amounts to only two or three United States cents per 1 US The United States customary system is the most commonly used system of measurement in the United States. It is similar but not identical to the British Imperial units. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation that does not mainly use the metric system in its commercial and standards activities, although the International System of Units (SI, gallon A gallon is a measure of volume of approximately four litres. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use. These are the U.S. liquid gallon and the lesser used U.S. dry gallon (≈ 4.4 L) which are in use in the United States, and the Imperial (UK) gallon (≈ 4.5 L) which is in unofficial use (3.8 L The litre is a unit of volume. There are two official symbols: the Latin letter L in lower and upper case (l and L). The lower case L is also often written as a cursive ℓ, though this symbol has no official approval by any international bureau. Although the litre is not an SI unit, it is accepted for use with the SI, and has appeared in several).[4]
Some specialized types of oil tankers have evolved. One of these is the naval replenishment oiler, a tanker which can fuel a moving vessel. Combination ore-bulk-oil carriers and permanently moored floating storage units Oil has been produced from offshore locations since the 1950s. Originally, all oil platforms sat on the seabed, but as exploration moved to deeper waters and more distant locations in the 1970s, floating production systems came to be used are two other variations on the standard oil tanker design. Oil tankers have been involved in a number of damaging and high-profile oil spills An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term often refers to marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters. The oil may be a variety of materials, including crude oil, refined petroleum products or by-products, ships'. As a result, they are subject to stringent design and operational regulations.
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