Less than a month after Crowley Maritime Company ordered four 50,000dwt petroleum tankers from the Aker yard in Pennsylvania, two more similar-sized ships have been ordered by Seabulk Tankers, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SEACOR Holdings, from San Diego’s NASSCO yard, a facility that has already been contracted to build four tankers for American Petroleum Transport (APT). Like the APT vessels, the Seabulk ships will be designed by DSEC, a subsidiary of South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, and will incorporate an optimised hull form in combination with a G-series MAN ME slow-speed main engine to provide improved fuel efficiency.
The tankers will also have dual-fuel-capable auxiliary engines and the ability to accommodate the future installation of an LNG fuel-gas system and Type C LNG storage tanks. Construction of the first 610ft-long tanker is scheduled to begin late next year, with delivery of the ships scheduled for the second quarter of 2016 and first quarter of 2017. Like the Crowley and APT tankers, the Seabulk vessels are expected to be put to work transporting crude oil in the US domestic trade before they begin to handle petroleum products. JS
