You may be familiar with a crude tanker, the massive ships that transport crude oil to refineries, but have you heard of the product tanker, the smaller vessel that transports refined product on its way to the end user or other refineries. Product tankers transport diesel, gasoline, jet oil, naphtha, kerosene, and much more. The product tanker is an impressive modern marvel that has a coating of epoxy-based paint on its tanks to prevent fast paced corrosion facilitated by the refined products that it transports. The coated tanks are also important for cleaning when a tanker switches between transporting, “clean products,” or light refined oil products as apposed to “dirty products,” which are heavy oils like bunker oil or diesel oil. Product tankers are also more versatile than crude tankers with segregated tanks that can hold different products and a smaller size that enables the ships to call on tighter ports. According to Maersk, the largest shipping company in the word, “one traditional trading route for product tankers is between North America and Europe, where gasoline is carried to the US and diesel fuel is transported back to Europe.” The use of product tankers is also growing in emerging markets like in Asia where regions have developed refining capabilities. Instead of having a set route product tankers go from job-to-job with a course that is set by what they were carrying last, market demands, and the ships broker who facilitates it all.
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