The Development of Crude Oil Tankers: A Historical Miscellany

INTRODUCTION

In 1861 the brig Elizabeth Watts left America bound for Great Britain with the world’s first cargo of barrelled crude oil. From such insignificant beginnings developed a system of marine transportation that, 160 years later, has become crucial to twenty-first century life. It is no exaggeration to say that without crude oil tankers daily conveying millions of tonnes of this invaluable commodity around the world, civilisation could not exist. For whilst alternatives are being seriously implemented, for the foreseeable future the consequences remain unthinkable, as surely – but inevitably – life without oil as we know it will simply grind to a halt.

But before the design of these ships could evolve into the strictly regulated tanker industry we have today, a veritable host of difficulties had to be overcome. Basically, the problems reduced themselves to understanding and then resolving two conundrums: one created by the sea as a medium of shipment, and the second the vagaries in the nature of crude oil itself.

From its early beginnings, British shipbuilding yards were associated with constructing vessels for this new trade. In fact, the world’s first ship which could truly be called an ‘oil tanker’ that contained separate tanks as part of the hull, as opposed to a mere brig which was fundamentally ‘an oil carrier’, was designed in 1886 by an Englishman. He was Henry Swan, a director at what would become Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson’s yard in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Crude oil is a complex mixture of carbon atoms to which are attached hydrogen atoms in a particular arrangement of chains. It is derived from marine sediments found in the world’s regions where there are areas of porous limestone and sandstone rock. The place of its discovery determines the oil’s specific gravity in its unrefined (crude) state, resulting in some thousands of diverse grades of light, medium or heavy crude. North Sea oil, for example, is relatively light, whilst that drilled in Nigeria is very heavy, with collection ports in the north and south of the Arabian Gulf producing a number of different grades.

Whilst drilling is a comparatively modern operation, an early recorded use of oil discovered near the earth’s surface was in 450bc when Herodotus placed oil in pots near Babylon, whilst in 325bc Alexander the Great is chronicled as using fire torches that were activated by oil. In 1264, Marco Polo visited Baku on the shores of the Caspian Sea – the present-day Azerbaijan – and discovered oil being used for lighting and medicinal purposes. In 1807 the streets of London were lit by coal oil whilst, in the United States, an oil well near Ohio was then producing drilled oil at the modest rate of one barrel per week.

It was not until 1854 when Canadian geologist Abraham Gesler invented a method of extracting oil from bitumen that the basis of the industry as we know it today was founded. Just four years later a certain ‘Colonel’ Edwin Drake’s drilling rig struck oil at Titusville in August 1859. These combined discoveries started an industrial revolution. For, if the world’s first motivating power for machinery, domestic usages, and transport was the introduction of steam, then oil swiftly became an overpowering second. But first, immense problems in conveying this valuable commodity from its source to the world’s markets had to be recognised, confronted and overcome.

Part One

EARLY CRUDE OIL AND PRODUCT CARRIERS

CHAPTER 1

BEGINNINGS – A NEED FOR OIL TANKERS

Throughout America, in the absence of something better, whale oil and tallow had been used for lighting and heating. These commodities were all very well, but the former proved expensive both to extract and market, and was causing growing environmental concern regarding depletion of the world’s stock of whales. Tallow was cheaper, but it emitted an offensive smell, so as Edwin Drake’s wells increased allowing the comparatively cheaper and cleaner form of oil to become more effective and readily available both within the United States and abroad, the demand was immediate and overwhelming. Within one year there were over seventy wells producing the new commodity in Titusville alone, leaving the area quickly to become known as Oil Creek. The oil was saved in barrels and then distributed by horse and cart to maritime jetties in Philadelphia, until an existing railway line using converted wine tankers could be extended to the creek. Within two years, in 1856, a modest ten barrels a day had grown into 3,000, and by 1862 combined oil-fields in America were producing 400,000 tons of crude per annum.

Before the construction of oil pipelines, horses and carts were used to transport the crude oil until it could be loaded into barrels for shipment from various Philadelphia jetties. The capacity of the carts, whilst inevitably restricted, was surprisingly adequate for the task, but a convoy of these with solid wheels and the ‘clopping’ of hooves over cobblestones doubtless made unforgettable sounds. (Roly Weekes)

Before the construction of oil pipelines, barrels were used to transport oil. Initially, the barrels were made from oak, sealed and bound with eight iron hoops, and fitted with a two-inch bung hole. They measured 33 inches long and 25 inches in diameter. A legacy from those pioneering days lives on, for today the industry internationally uses ‘a barrel of crude oil’ as a standard measurement, with the British barrel comprising 35 Imperial gallons and an American barrel 42 gallons. Roughly 7.25 barrels equates to one metric tonne.

For centuries, liquid cargoes such as water, vegetable oils and wines had been carried satisfactorily in the ubiquitous Greek vases and casks, so it seemed perfectly natural to ship oil in a similar way. Before long, such traditional methods became accepted without further thought.

The first ship to carry a homogeneous cargo of oil across the rough seas of the North Atlantic was the Elizabeth Watts. This wooden brig was 110 feet in length with three cargo holds, and for her first voyage she was chartered by Peter Wright and Sons of Philadelphia. Other than her claim to fame of being the first recorded ship to convey barrels of oil across the North Atlantic, very little is known of such a famous vessel as the Elizabeth Watts. Internet sources reveal she was built in American shipyards at Maine in 1847 as a brig, or sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts, and there is evidence that she made at least two subsequent voyages, but her fate remains uncertain.

The British master, Captain Charles Bryant, seemingly had considerable difficulties finding a crew to man the ship and it was only by plying them with alcohol in a local inn that he was able eventually to man his vessel. He left the Delaware River on 19 November 1861 bound for the River Thames in London. Elizabeth Watts carried 901 barrels of rock oil (which the Americans called kerosene), and 428 barrels of coal oil. The cargo took ten days to load and, after a voyage lasting 52 days, she arrived at the Victoria Docks on 9 January 1862. The daily shipping newspaper Lloyd’s List recorded her momentous arrival in their edition of 8 January: ‘Gravesend Arrived 7th from Philadelphia, Elizabeth Watts, Bryant’. The cargo took twelve days to discharge.

The first trip of the Elizabeth Watts, together with experiences from other vessels of the day co-opted into carrying oil, soon uncovered a disturbing fact: oil was totally different to anything previously carried. A veritable raft of problems emerged. Because the oil was already in barrels, these containers were automatically considered the most convenient means of transportation and so a number were included with other general cargo aboard vessels. But the quantities shipped were far from adequate to meet the growing demand in the UK (among other European countries) and thoughts became focussed towards bulk homogeneous carriage.

Inadequate quantity was the least difficulty encountered with the barrels. The empty casks were very heavy, often weighing as much as 20 per cent of their oil content. They were bulky and unwieldy to handle which made them difficult to stow, and because they did not completely fill the holds the reduced payload was not cost effective. They had a low re-sale price so re-loading for future use was not entertained. This meant they had to be burnt at or near the destination port, which proved a costly and dirty business. There were further problems involved in carrying oil in barrels. Heavy Atlantic storms and rough seas caused severe hull stress on the sailing ships, and before the voyage was half completed, some of the cargo was lost by distortion, with the barrels splitting and spilling oil into the bottom of the holds. This released highly toxic and inflammable hydrocarbon gas that sank into the bottom of the ship. A number of shipboard fires and explosions were recorded, along with dangerous health hazards such as respiratory problems, and some forms of cancer.

In the early days of transportation of oil across the Atlantic a number of ships suddenly found themselves co-opted into a trade for which their construction was never intended. This sailing vessel was built in the same year as Elizabeth Watts and was of similar tonnage construction, although the main-mast and funnel were retrofitted much later in her career. (Nautical Photo Agency)

With the increasing number of more economical steam-ships employed to carry barrels, much of this gas settled into the cellular double bottoms. From there it made its way into the propeller shaft tunnel to emerge in the engine-room and accommodation, frequently with fatal results. Petroleum products and crude oil also varied in volume and contracted or expanded appreciably dependent upon changes in sea temperatures as the ship sailed on international voyages. This resulted in loss of cargo, adding to the distortion of the carriers.

All sailings of the 1,000 or so ships transporting barrelled crude around this time were subject to these severe and very real hazards. Inevitably, conveyance by ship grew very slowly until new and safer methods of dealing with this totally new form of cargo could be tested and adopted, and the best and safest ways to improve safety and increase cargo capacity developed.

Over subsequent years, a range of often ingenious experiments evolved. Crates of rectangular cans were used in the early days but although easier to stow and slightly more robust they proved far more expensive than the barrels. Minds then turned to placing a series of rectangular or cylindrical tanks in the holds but, similarly to the cans, these restricted the payload in proportion to the tonnage capacity of the ship and failed to meet problems of oil expansion.

Among various vessels designed in 1863 to find a partial solution was the three-masted sailing vessel Atlantic. She was built of iron by Rogerson’s shipyard at St. Peter’s on the Tyne for The Petroleum Trading Company of Newcastle. The yard had previously specialised in constructing coal brigs, but this ship was certainly among the first purpose-built tankers designed purely for transporting oil across the oceans. The hold was divided into eight cargo tanks by an oil-tight central longitudinal and three transversal bulkheads, enabling the ship to carry around 700 tons of oil. This could be discharged by her primitive pumping equipment in around twenty-four hours. The yard also launched a similar tanker called the Great Western, which served the trade from late 1863 until the 1890s. The two ships were not unrivalled successes as they were really too small for oil requirements, and whilst hollow masts helped contain some effects of cargo expansion and gas emissions they did little to solve any problems. Nevertheless 1861 certainly proved a prolific year for experimental ship design, for the Ramsey also emerged from an Isle of Man shipyard and could carry 1,400 tons of petroleum.

Whilst British shipyards continued to experiment with varying forms of hulls, other European nations were developing their own ideas to break into what was proving a highly successful financial trade of conveying crude oil from America.

The Norwegians, for example, concentrated on methods to produce oil-tight tanks within their hulls. A Norwegian ship-master Captain Even Tolleffsen worked on this problem during long Atlantic-voyages and designed a system of adding extra timber and felt into tarpaulin-lined tanks within his 1869-built wooden-hulled ex-dry cargo ship, the Lindesnaes. He reported his ideas to the ship’s owner, Gustav Hansen, who quickly saw the potential merits and permitted division of the vessel’s tank space into a longitudinal and transversal bulkheads, fitted additionally with swash-boards in an effort to reduce the ‘swishing effect’ of oil washing from port to starboard in heavy seas, which could distort the vessel’s critical momentum and make her prone to capsizing, especially in heavy beam seas. The ship had built into her ‘tanks’ both an inter-connecting piping system and an efficient hand-operated pump. Hansen’s ideas might not have achieved perfection, but the ship soon proved her commercial worth by carrying around