At nearly 380 vessels in the size range 279,000 DWT to 320,000 DWT, these are by far the most popular size range among the larger VLCCs. Only seven vessels are larger than this, and approximately 90 between 220,000 DWT and 279,000 DWT.DWT means Dead Weight Tonnes. Each VLCC can transport about 2 million barrels of crude.
Iran has had a fleet of 15 VLCCs idling off Iran for months. Today they released 4 of them with 11 remaining at idle. These tankers are full of oil.
Tehran cuts number of supertankers idling in GulfA point of note is that there are not a lot of excess tankers just milling around in the world. Why not? Actually it's because they cost a whole lot of money and cannot afford to be idle or you can't pay the mortgage -- Unless somebody pays for the time they idle. And that somebody is Iran.
Tehran: Iran, Opec's second-largest oil producer, cut the number of tankers it has idling in the Arabain Gulf to 11, from 15 a week ago, ship-tracking data show.
The 11 very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, have a storage capacity of about 22 million barrels. They are floating near the Kharg Island crude-oil loading facility or the nearby Soroush Terminal, according to AISLive data on Bloomberg.
Of the four tankers that set sail since June 23, two are bound for Egypt's Ain Sukhna terminal in the Red Sea, where they can empty their cargoes into a pipeline for refiners to collect. Another is going to China and one to Jebel Dhanna in the UAE.
The game here is that by idling the tankers, you constrict supply to the rest of the world. Iran might be testing how many tankers they need to sink in the event of an attack. It would take years to replace sunk tankers.
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