Alpine Loyalty - good bye to crude

After lying at anchor off Halifax since September 20, the Singapore flag Alpine Loyalty tied up at Imperial Oil dock# 5 this afternoon. An application was made on September 20 for the ship to be granted a coasting license to transport 120,000 bbl of crude oil from the Imperoyal refinery to Canaport, Saint John, NB and /or Portland, ME (for the Montreal pipeline) and /or to refineries in Quebec or Ontario, between the dates of September 27 and October 26. [The ship is too large for the St.Lawrence Seaway, so Ontario refineries would be difficult to reach by ship, but rail or truck transfer would be considered part of the coastal voyage for the cargo.]

The cargo is the crude oil that remained in Imperial's system after refining ceased on September 16. Its destination will depend on which refinery can take the crude once it is loaded into the tanker. That may take some time, since normally the crude has been pumped ashore - now it will have to go in the reverse direction.
As a non-Canadian ship, a coasting license was needed because there are Canadian ships that would be suitable for the work and would have priority if they were available. It is apparent that none were available, since the Canadian Transportation Agency recommended the license to the Minister of Public Safety on September 26.

Alpine Loyalty was built in 2010 and is normally a chemical/product tanker of 29,130 gross tons, 46,151 tonnes deadweight. Operators are Transpetrol of Asker, Norway.

The ship's arrival resulted in another product tanker, Indian Point, moving from #4 dock out to anchor in the harbour. It appears to have discharged its cargo of product.

Flying the Italian flag, Indian Point is a slightly larger ship at 29,130 gross tons, 46,151 deadweight. It is operated by PB Tankers of Palermo, Italy. Note the full width enclosed bridge.

Both ships are type 2 chemical tankers with phenolic epoxy coatings and both were built in Korea; Alpine Loyalty by STX Shipbuilding in Pusan and Indian Point by Hyundai Mipo Dockyard.

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