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Dieren en planten

Water en land

Mens en Milieu

Shipping by sort   Tankers   
Tanker, Marijke de Boer

Tankers

Tankers are sea-going ships designed for carrying large amounts of fluid materials. They transport raw oil, vegetable oil or chemicals. The largest tankers have a carrying capacity of 500,000 tons. Old, single-hulled tankers form a danger as far as environmental disasters are concerned. Modern tankers are required to have double-sided hulls.

  • Oil disasters
    Broken oil tanker, Ecomare

    The shipping industry has a sad history of oil spills whereby a lacking ship, involved in an accident, ripped or broke in half spilling large amounts of oil and causing an enormous amount of damage to the flora and fauna on the sea bottom or along the coast. After a whole series of disasters between 1970 and 2000, international policy makers came with regulations, from which one would expect that shipping with 'rusted tanks' would belong to the past. However, the disaster along the Spanish coast with the Prestige at the end of 2002 emphasized the fact that there are still many shipowners sailing bad ships. The MARPOL Treaty has been forbidden building single-hulled tankers since April 2005.

  • Double-hulled tankers

    After the accident with the Exxon Valdez in Alaska, it was decided that new tankerss had to be double-hulled. After the disaster with the Prestige, the EC has requested that the International Maritime Organization accelerate the end of using single-hulled tanker by several years. Since 2010, single-hulled tankers will no longer be allowed in European waters. Although these tankers will not leak oil as quickly if stranded or in a collison, an old double-hulled tanker can be dangerous if not sufficiently maintained. Corrosion in places that are difficult to get to can cause leakage in hollow spaces, where explosive gas mixtures can form.