Marine Log - November 2008 - (Page 59)

TUGS&BARGES in the Gulf. Thanks to Bill Taylor, a longtime MTL captain who came ashore to lend his expertise in operations, the need to create an ATB with cargo flexibility was realized. Building on the success of the 550 series ATBs, Crowley developed plans for a 650 series with 185,000 barrels of capacity and a more sophisticated tank cleaning system for greater cargo flexibility. The increase in capacity made the vessels more compatible with trade in the Gulf and along the East Coast where refineries are newer and didn’t pose the same small load restrictions that they did on the West Coast. To accommodate those 30,000 extra barrels, the barges in this series were constructed one tank longer, while the tugs only needed slight modification. The first two ATBs in this series, the Pacific Reliance/650-1 and Gulf Reliance/650-2 had a change of arrangement on the barge, which eliminated under deck piping and outfitted each tank with its own pump. This allowed them to carry EZ chemicals like parazylene (a chemical used to make plastic water bottles among other things) and “No problem! If we can think it, we can build it.” Ed Schlueter, Vice President, Marine Technical Services, Crowley Maritime clean and dirty petroleum products (gas/oil and fuel oil respectively) without having to be completely drained and cleaned between tanks of cargo. Not to allow the series to hit the market without its fair share of drama, the tugs were changed midstream so that the Resolve/650-3 and Integrity/650-4 were switched to heavy fuel engines instead of the more traditional diesel engines. These two new entries would burn only 30 tons of fuel per day saving the charterer about $4,500 a day in fuel costs. Easy enough right? Well, not exactly. In order to accommodate these new engines, the tugs had to be lengthened eight feet. But, with the market dictating that opportunities were in the heavy fuel vessels, the build and design team once again went to work to make it happen. Again, coming back for more, Conoco Phillips was the first customer of the new 650-class followed by Shell then BP, which took the next four and Marathon, which is signed on for the 650-7 and 6508. Not intending to rest on their laurels, the team immediately began work on yet a bigger and faster series, the 750-class. These three new 330,000-barrel vessels will by far be the largest in the Crowley family with 75% more capacity than their predecessors. And, each with its own 16,320-horsepower tug pushing from behind, will be the fastest ATBs built to date—making a speed of 15 knots or about 17 miles per hour, which will approximate the speed of a tanker. To date, all of these 750s are under charter as well. Most will serve as www.marinelog.com NOVEMBER 2008 MARINE LOG 59 http://www.stearnsinc.com http://www.stearnsinc.com http://www.marinelog.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Marine Log - November 2008

Marine Log - November 2008 Contents Editorial Second Thoughts Update Inside Washington Looking Back at 130 Years Generation NeXt What's Ahead? Media Kit 2009 Defying the Naysayers Rampant Piracy Takes Shipping Hostage The Last Chapter of the New Carissa International Workboat Show Preview Newsmakers Tech News Contracts Events Website Directory ML Buyer's Guide ML Marketplace Marine Salvage

Marine Log - November 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.