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Tanker Design and Safety: Historical Developments and Future Trends

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Environmental Technology in the Oil Industry

Abstract

A prime concern of the maritime industry and of governmental and regulatory authorities is to continuously enhance ship safety and to reduce marine pollution related to ship incidents and accidents, while keeping ship efficiency and economy at competitive levels. Despite a variety of introduced safety-enhancing measures, regulations, and technologies addressing the prevention of accidents, marine accidents leading to oil pollution continue to happen, and this will not change in the future. Thus, a reasonable goal for the maritime industry and relevant authorities is mitigation of the risk associated with accidents in terms of minimizing the probability of an occurrence and its consequences. The present chapter comprises a critical review of historical developments in oil tanker design and of relevant regulations concerned with the prevention of marine oil spills and the protection of both the marine and the atmospheric environment. This chapter includes a comprehensive analysis and critical review of recorded accidents of medium and large oil tankers (deadweight over 20,000 tonnes) that occurred after the introduction of OPA 90 and up to the present. The frequency of tanker accidents significantly decreased over the years, but accidental pollution rates did not follow the same pattern of significant decrease because these rates are determined by the “catastrophic” type of accidents, which continued to happen from time to time. The present chapter finally presents future developments in oil tanker design and operation in the frame of risk-based design and operation, targeting tankers of enhanced efficiency and safety within a holistic approach to ship design and operation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The first modern times oil tanker is believed to be the Glücksauf (Good Luck), built in 1886 by the Armstrong Mitchell yard in Newcastle upon Tyne for the German H. Reidemann, which was chartered by the Standard Oil Company. It was the first steam-driven, ocean-going oil tanker into which oil could be pumped directly to its internally subdivided, eight-compartment hull; she featured all the main elements of a modern tanker, such as cargo main piping and valves, operated from the main deck, vapor lines, and cofferdams, and the ability to receive ballast water when empty of cargo. She was lost in 1893 after grounding near Long Island (New York) in fog.

  2. 2.

    The Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) was made mandatory for new ships, as of 1 January 2013; this was decided at MEPC 62 (July 2011) with the adoption of amendments to MARPOL Annex VI (resolution MEPC.203(62)) and accompanied the introduction of a Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP) for all ships.

  3. 3.

    Note that the most prominent Exxon Valdez 37,000-tonne oil spill in 1989, which led to the introduction of OPA 90, had a cleanup cost of USD 107,000/tonne (2007 dollars), whereas the cleanup cost of the Braer 85,000-tonne oil spill in 1993 was as low as USD 6/tonne ([32]).

Abbreviations

CAF:

Cost for averting one fatality

CATS:

Cost of Averting one Tonne of Spilled oil

CSR:

Common structural rules

DH:

Double-hull ships

DWT:

Deadweight

EEDI:

Energy efficiency design index

EEOI:

Energy efficiency operational indicator

ESP:

Enhanced program survey

ETS:

European telecommunications standards

FSA:

Formal safety assessment

GCAF:

Gross cost of averting a fatality

GISIS:

Global integrated shipping information system

IACS:

International Association of Classification Societies

ICAF:

Implied cost of averting a fatality

IEA:

International Energy Agency

IHS:

IHS Fairplay [formerly LRF (Lloyd’s Register Fairplay)]

IMO:

International Maritime Organization

IOPCF:

International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund

IPCC:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

ISM:

International Safety Management Code

LMIU:

Lloyd’s Maritime Intelligence Unit

LOWI:

Loss of watertight integrity

MARPOL:

International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships

MEPC:

Marine Environment Protection Committee

NCAF:

Net cost of averting a fatality

NASF:

Non-accidental structural failure

NTUA-SDL:

National Technical University of Athens–Ship Design Laboratory

OILPOL:

International Convention on the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil

OOI:

Oil outflow index

OPA 90:

Oil Pollution Act

Paris MoU:

Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control

PLC:

Potential loss of cargo

PLL:

Potential loss of life

RBD:

Risk-based design

RCO:

Risk control option

SECA:

Sulfur emission controlled areas

SEEMP:

Ship energy efficiency management plan

SOLAS:

International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea

SFOC:

Specific fuel oil consumption

STCW:

International Convention on Standards of Training Certification and Watch Keeping for Seafarers

ULCC:

Ultra-large crude carrier

VLCC:

Very large crude carrier

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ship Design Laboratory (NTUA-SDL), National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Apostolos Papanikolaou

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Correspondence to Apostolos Papanikolaou .

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  1. Grove, United Kingdom

    Stefan Orszulik

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Papanikolaou, A. (2016). Tanker Design and Safety: Historical Developments and Future Trends. In: Orszulik, S. (eds) Environmental Technology in the Oil Industry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24334-4_9

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