Product Tankers are designed to carry clean petroleum products (CPP). According to the distillation process, CPP encompass light (e.g. Gasoline, Naphtha) and middle distillates (e.g. Diesel, Jet) products. Product Tankers’ main characteristics are epoxy-coated cargo tanks that protect cargo, while facilitating tank cleaning between one loaded grade to the next.
The Product Tanker Fleet includes the following categories of vessels, based on their carrying capacity:
Aframax – Long Range 2 (LR2): 90.000 – 120.000 dwt
Panamax – Long Range 1 (LR1): 65.000 – 80.000 dwt
Handymax – Medium Range (MR): 35.000 – 55.000 dwt
a) Long Range 2
Coated Aframax Tankers constitute a rapidly expanding category in the Product Tanker Fleet. For the past years, LR2s have been involved in the naphtha shipments from the Middle East or from Europe to Japan and Korea, mainly for petrochemical production needs, and also jet fuel from Middle East and India towards various Westbound end-user destinations.
b) Long Range 1
Coated Panamax Tankers constitute an increasingly flexible category in the Product Tanker Fleet. LR1s are set to assume increasing importance because the significant expansion of refinery capacity both in the Middle East and in India/China. This expansion has been pushing petroleum product exports out of these areas, in growing volumes, both to the West and to the East. Their flexibility owes to their economic viability for both long haul but also shorter haul trades.
c) Medium Range
Coated Handymax Tankers constitute the most populous category in the Product Tanker Fleet. MRs typically operate in the Atlantic and the Pacific basins. They are mostly engaged in gasoline transport to the US (Gulf and East Coast) from the Caribbean and Europe, as well as diesel from US Gulf to Europe and the Mediterranean.