One Time, In Full

ON TIME, IN FULL

BY PAUL GOOCH

MOVE YOUR ASSETS!

IN 1996 WE we were invited to speak at a Lloyds–Richardson Lawrie conference in London on the chemical industry’s expectations from the chemical and gas tanker market. At the time we had responsibility for Dow Chemical Europe’s logistics, which included bulk marine chartering. In preparing for the presentation we engaged our network in the industry to research the subject.

By chance the timing of our research coincided with the delivery to Stolt Parcel Tankers of the M/T Stolt Innovation, the first in a series of ten 37,000-tonne so-called Innovation-class chemical parcel tankers that would be delivered through 1998. The new ship incorporated features that set new standards of environmental protection, safety and operating efficiency. M/T Stolt Innovation had 42 integral and four deck cargo tanks, all constructed from solid stainless steel, and all fitted with separate pumps and pipelines and able to handle hazardous and corrosive cargoes (IMO Type 1).

There was some wry speculation at the time that, with all the tanks and fittings in stainless steel, when the lifetime of the hull expired they could simply build a new hull around the tanks…

There was no question it was an impressive piece of state-of-the-art marine engineering, but the design raised some questions: 1. What was the new-build cost of such a vessel? With all the shipbuilding subsidies and tax breaks at the time such a question was almost impossible to answer, but the consensus view of the experts we contacted was well north of $100m (in 1996). We asked ourselves if the chemical industry, ever focused on cost control, would be able to afford it? 2. However, more importantly, the configuration of 42 integral and four deck tanks was intriguing. The total tank capacity amounted to 38,600 m3 , which meant that, given the number and range of tank sizes, there were inevitably some very small tanks in the configuration. We learned during our research that it was estimated that chemical parcel tankers spent approximately 40 per cent of available time (remember that number!) in port, loading and discharging, and moving from one tank terminal to another. Perhaps naively we thought chemical parcel tankers were designed to move large volumes of bulk chemicals from A to B, as safely, efficiently, and timely as possible. Lots of small tanks would seem to be inconsistent