Topic: Oil markets pressured by shortage of tankers

[Jack Morris]

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/business/9965622.htm?1c

Go Top Tankers GOOOOOOOOO!
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=TOPT
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=topt&d=t
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041018/lam097_1.html

That's my baby! Mean recommendation from all the analysts? 1.0 Perfect strong buy. 

Back to the topic though, we knew this was coming, why are we not building big double hulled tankers capable of going through ice? America is a driving and fossil fuel consuming nation. Whatever happened to building ships of high quality in record time like during WW2 with the Liberty ships? Not only would a lot of welders, steelworkers, and ship related people get back to work, there is a high demand for these double hulled tankers! BIG MONEY TO BE MADE!

Being a Navy brat I KNOW of Bethlehem shipbuilding corp. and Litton (formerly known as Ingalls shipbuilding) shipbuilding corp. capable of building such ships. Anybody know of other U.S. shipyards? PLEASE tell me the Navy isn't getting all the shipbuilding space, the Spruance DD is NOT outdated yet and the Ticonderoga was a 80s-90s vessel. Surely we have enough CVs?

[Jack Morris]

I apologize for the first link, you have to register, but when I looked at it off Yahoo as it was a related story I did not need go through that BS. I used the address of the house that is getting sold, hehehehehehehe.

Basically it states that we have record demand for oil, and a SEVERE shortage of double hulled oil tankers that can go through ice even, thus the companies that DO have them are raking it in as of now and through the winter I'm sure.

[kmelew]

Back to the topic though, we knew this was coming, why are we not building big double hulled tankers capable of going through ice?

In a word: environmentalists.  Can you imagine the furor that would be raised if one of those tankers split up in Prudhoe Bay?  Back in the late '60's the supertanker SS Manhattan pioneered the route you're advocating.  It was judged not practical and the Alaska Pipeline and the Valdez terminal were built instead.

[Jack Morris]

K, did we even build double hulled tankers in the 60's? That was 40 years ago. I thought that ever since the Exxon Valdez incident, single hull tankers were going to become a thing of the past?

[Jack Morris]

K, I cannot find any info whether I enter S.S. Manhattan, they tend to want to tell the story of the WW2 oil tanker. All I know is the S.S. Manhattan you are talking about was built at Bethlehem in the very late 50's, 114,000 deadweight tons and converted into an icebreaker. No specs as to the hull or anything.

Is there an interesting story behind this ship? What happened?

The searches for the ship sucked too as somehow terrorism against oil tankers in Manhattan get inserted in there.  I'm looking for a ship, not potential terrorist targets, geez, all of America is a potential target...

I do believe that even the largest supertankers being built have NOTHING on the Queen Mary 2, there were only 5 yards WORLDWIDE capable of building such a vessel, the place she was built may surprise everyone. France, not Great Britain as expected.

http://www.cruisediva.com/qm2_1.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/qm2.htm
Whoa! 150,000 tons! The largest BBs ever built, the Yamato and Musashi by comparison were a mere 65,000 tons, the Iowa class were even lower!

[kmelew]

Jack, per your request:

Esso Manhattan

[Jack Morris]

THank you K! Top Tankers is not doing business with Alaska though, they are more focused shipping on the Far East and China side as well as the southern and eastern U.S. coasts, and even though they are a Greek company they trade on our market now and the head honcho running the show (The owner is Greek) is an American! 

I'm glad they had the foresight to test the darn thing with water first! I worked moonlighting for Exxon while working at the military hospital at Belvoir, and once a month we all go out for lunch and discuss store issues, paid for by Exxon of course! Thanks to that dumbarse Capt. of the Valdez being frunk at the time of the spill, Exxon quit paying for alcoholic beverages at company functions like our luncheons.  Before the Valdez incident, it was "Let's party and talk!"