Back to Belgium

 Imperial Oil stocks its Dartmouth, NS distribution facility with refined products from various sources. Sometimes that is its own refineries in Sarnia and Nanticoke, ON. With the St. Lawrence Seaway now closed for the winter Imperial has turned once again to Antwerp, Belgium where it has been meeting a good part of its local needs, year round, for the past few years. [Imperial Oil is 69.6% owned by Exxon Mobil. The company markets its products in Canada under the Esso and Mobil trade names.]

Today (January 5) it was the Liberian registered tanker Aquasmeralda arriving from the Belgian port, where Exxon Mobil Benelux operates large refinery and chemical facilities.

Immediately identifiable from the large "CHI" (Greek letter X) on the funnel, the ship is a member of the Chandris (Hellas) shipping fleet. The Chandris family has been in the shipping business since the 19th century (if not before) and has been a tanker operator since the 1920s. It now operates 33 tankers of 3.8 mn tonnes deadweight in most size ranges.

This ship was built in 2021 by Jiangsu Newyangzi Shipbuilding in Jingjiang, China to the shipyard's own account and was laid down as Yangze 18. It has typical MidRange dimensions of 29,725 gt, 50,295 dwt. Chandris (Hellas) acquired and renamed it after completion  along with another sister MR tanker, built at the same yard, the 50,315 dwt vessel now named Aliai. [Some sources term tankers of this size to be "LongRange 1", others as "MidRange 2", still others as "Handysize". In any case they are the most common size of chermical / product tanker in service.]

We are more accustomed to see the "X" funnel on ships of the Celebrity Cruise Line. The Chandris family operated passenger liners starting in 1960 and founded Chandris Cruises in 1977. In 1988 they renamed the operation as Celebrity Cruises, then sold it to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines in 1997. Celebrity has maintained its identity within the publicly traded Royal Caribbean Group and still carries the highly recognizeable "Chi" funnel mark on ships such as Celebrity Summit a frequent caller in Halifax during cruise season. Chandris has no role in operation of Celebrity Cruises.

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