Largest Crude Carriers.....(VLCC & ULCC)

::BATILLUS CLASS
(First Super Tanker Ever Built)DWT 5550000MT













:: JAHRE VIKINGS
(World Largest Crude Tanker After Re-Built)DWT 564763MT

VLCC:::: Very Large Crude Carrier
ULCC:::: Ultra Large Crude Carrier
A tanker is a ship designed to transport liquids in bulk Petroleum tankers are a particular brand of tanker all their own. This type is sometimes referred to as a tankship.
Tankers can range in size of capacity from several hundred tons, which includes vessels for servicing small harbours and coastal settlements, to several hundred thousand tons, for long-range haulage. A wide range of products are carried by tankers, including:hydrocarbon products such as oil, liquefied petroleum gas(LPG), and liquefied natural gas (LNG) ,chemicals, such as ammonia, chlorine, and styrene monomer,fresh water.
Tankers are a relatively new concept, dating from the later years of the 19th century. Before this, technology had simply not supported the idea of carrying bulk liquids. The market was also not geared towards transporting or selling cargo in bulk, therefore most ships carried a wide range of different products in different holds and traded outside fixed routes. Liquids were usually loaded in casks - hence the term "tonnage", which refers to the volume of the holds in terms of the amount of tuns of wine (casks) that could be carried Carrying bulk liquids.
In the end, the tanker had its beginnings in the oil industry, as oil companies sought cheaper ways to transport their refinery product to their customers. The Oil Tanker was born. Nowadays, most liquids are cheaper to transport in bulk, and dedicated terminals exist for each product. Large storage tanks ashore are used to store the product until it can be subdivided into smaller volumes for delivery to smaller customers.
Among oil tankers, supertankers are designed for transporting oil around the Horn of Africa from the Middle East. The floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) Knock Nevis, formerly the ULCC Jahre Viking, is the largest vessel in the world. The supertanker is 458 metres (1504 feet) in length and 69 m (226 ft) wide.
Supertankers are one of the three preferred methods for transporting large quantities of oil, along with pipeline transport and rail. However such tankers can create environmental disasters from oil spills especially if an accident causes the ship to sink. See Exxon Valdez, Braer, Prestige oil spill, Torrey Canyon, and Erika for examples of coastal accidents.
Tankers used for liquid fuels are classified according to their capacity. In 1954 Shell Oil developed the afra system (average freight rate assessment) for fiscal reasons. Tankers were divided in groups of different sizes. To make it an independent instrument, Shell consulted the London Tanker Brokers’ Panel (LTBP). At first, they divided the groups as General Purpose for tankers under 25,000 deadweight tonnage (dwt); Medium Range for ships between 25,000 and 45,000 dwt; and Large Range for the then-enormous ships that were larger than 45,000 dwt. The ships became larger during the 1970s, and the list was extended, where the tons are long tons
10,000–24,999 dwt:::::::::::::::: General Purpose tanker
25,000–44,999 dwt:::::::::::::::: Medium Range tanker
45,000–79,999 dwt::::::::::::::::: LR1 (Large Range 1)
80,000–159,999 dwt::::::::::::::: LR2 (Large Range 2)
160,000–319,999 dwt::::::::::::::VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier)
320,000–549,999 dwt::::::::::::: ULCC (Ultra Large Crude Carrier)

The following groups of ships are used in the oil market:::::::::::

Class I
SEAWAY MAX--226M Length--24M Beam--7.92M Draft--DWT 60000MT

Class II

PANA MAX--294.1 m Length--32.3M Beam--12M Draft--DWT 80000MT

Class III

AFRAMAX---------------------------------DWT 120000MT

Class IV

SUEZMAX---------------------16M Draft--DWT 200000MT

Class V

VLCC(MALACCAMAX)--470M Length--60M Beam--20M Draft--DWT 550000MT

Based on the 2007 status list of the 500 largest supertankers prepared by Visser. there are almost 380 vessels in the size range 279,000-320,000 dwt(Dead Weight), making this by far the most popular size range among the larger VLCCs. Only 7 vessels are larger than this, and about 90 between 220,000 and 279,000.Jahre Vikking Is the Word Largest Crude Tanker after the Reconstruction at singapore
The biggest ships ever constructed as a class were four Batillus class supertankers built in France at the end of the 1970s, having a 555.000 DWT and 414 meters length. They were launched from the shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint Nazaire. The only larger ship was the Knock Nevis (ex Jahre Viking, ex Happy Giant, ex Seawise Giant) of 1981, which was originally designed with a smaller tonnage than the Batillus class, but had its length and tonnage increased while still under construction. However, if gross tonnage can be considered as evidence of size, the Batillus and Bellamya had a gross tonnage of 275,276 tons. This is the greatest in history, including the Knock Nevis (about 260,000 gross tons).
Ships of the Batillus class included:
Batillus, built in 1976, scrapped in 1985.[1]
Bellamya, built in 1976, scrapped in 1986.[2]
Pierre Guillaumat, built in 1977, scrapped in 1983.[3]
Prairial, built in 1979, renamed Hellas Fos, renamed Sea Giant, scrapped in 2003[4]