More Tankers and a catching up

 There was tanker activity at both Imperial Oil and Irving Oil, and there were also tankers at anchor today (October 13).

At Imperial Oil, the Stolt Sisto arrived at Dock #3 with more refined product from Antwerp.

 Built by SLS Shipbuilding Company in Tongyeong, South Korea in 2010, it is a 26,329 gt, 46,011 dwt chemical and product tanker.

Despite being one of the world's largest tanker operators, with no less that 170 ships under control of its Stolt Tankers BV subsidiary, Stolt-Nielsen ships seldom call in Halifax these days. The company was founded in 1959 by Jacob Stolt-Nielsen as a pioneering operator of parcel tankers. He built ships to carry many small quantities of liquids, largely chemicals for the plastics industry. Keeping the commodities separate without contamination required elaborate pumping arrangements, and sometimes special tank construction due to the corrosive nature of acids or the hazardous nature of some materials.

The last Stolt Tankers ship that I recall seeing in Halifax was the Glory ex Stolt Glory (still in the Stolt Tankers fleet despite the name change) that called at Imperial Oil on a voyage from Rotterdam to Searsport, ME May 11, 2012. I covered a bit of the company history in the Shipfax post on that day. Among its many business interests Stolt-Nielsen owns several chemical terminals, and fleet of tank containers that are often seen in Halifax.

In order for Imperial Oil to accommodate the Stolt Sisto at its one remaining operable oil dock (docks number 4 and 5 are inoperable, and there is no longer a dock 1 or a dock 2) the coastal tanker Algoscotia moved to anchor in Bedford Basin. 

 It really was the calm before the storm as glassy calm water in Bedford Basin reflected a threatening sky, which was soon followed by thunder, lightning, rain and rare for Halifax - hail.

Another tanker also arrived to anchor in Bedford Basin just before the intense rain began. The economically named Pag arrived from Houston, and will be unloading at Imperial Oil in turn.

 The Pag operates for Tankerska Plovidba of Croatia. It is a MidRange type of 29,735 gt, 49,990 dwt, built in 2015 by SPP Shipbuilding Company in Sacheon, South Korea.

One of the Ultra size container ships that has been on the CMA CGM Columbus JAX service as part of the Ocean Alliance, the CMA CGM G.Washington, arrived again in Halifax this afternoon. I was not able to get much in the way of photos of the ship on its previous visits, November 16, 2022 and May 20, 2023, so I was pleased that the rain had eased up to light drizzle when it hove into view.

Built by Hyundai, Ulsan in 2017 it comes in at 140,872 gt, 148,992 dwt with a capacity of 14,360 TEU. Although large, it is still well shy of the current size record holder for the Halifax, the CMA CGM Marco Polo with a capacity of 16,020 TEU.

CMA CGM has various name themes for different classes of ships. Ships such as this one are named for Presidents of the United States, following the tradition of APL, formerly the American President Line, which CMA CGM acquired in 2016 when it bought Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) which in turn had acquired APL in 1997.

The ship arrived from Asia via the Suez Canal and stopped in Tanger Med, Morocco after traversing the Mediterranean.

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