More Cars and more Fuel

 With spring comes a surge in demand for new cars, and so Autoport has been particularly busy with spring arrivals. To fuel those cars (with summer gasoline formulations) the petroleum companies have also been stocking up.

Over the past few days there have been two ships at Autoport - both familiar ones - with batches of new European cars.

On Saturday May 4 it was Wallenius Wilhelmsen's Don Pasquale from the usual European load ports of Bremerhaven, Goteborg and Southampton.(Skipping Zeebrugge this time.)

The ship was built by Daewoo Heavy Industries in Okpo in 1997 and in 2007 it was lengthened from 219.3 to 227.9 m by Hyundai Vinaship in Vietnam. The reworked ship now registers 67,141 gt, 28,142 dwt with a capacity of 7,194 cars. It sailed for New York.

Today, May 5, it was the SFL Composer in from Bremen (the Volkswagen export facility) with a consignment of VWs, Audis and Porsches. The ship is under charter to VW until the First Quarter of 2027.

It is a 58,631 gt, 18,881 dwt ship with a capacity of 6500 CEU. Built in 2005 by Minami Nippon in Shitanoe, it was originally the Excellent Ace becoming Glovis Composer in 2012 and SFL Composer in 2020.

SFL Composer will remain in port over night and is due to sail late tomorrow afternoon.

On the fuel side of things, Irving Oil has been busy.

On Tuesday May 2 there was an unusual caller, Irving Oil's charter tanker Great Eastern arriving from Amsterdam. 

The Marshall Islands flag ship normally operates between Saint John, NB and US east coast ports, and is rarely seen in Halifax. As a foreign flagged ship it is not permitted to trade between Canadian ports. It also rarely sails to Europe, and this appears to be a "one of" voyage. Irving Oil regualry imports refined product from its storage termainl in Amsterdam, but usually with spot charter ships.

Built in 2005 by Hyundai, Ulsan Great Eastern is a MidRange type tanker of 23,552 gt, 37,515 dwt and is one of five sister tankers operating under long term charter to Irving Oil. Two of the ships, the Acadian and the East Coast (ex Nor-Easter) fly the Canadian flag and serve primarily Atlantic Canada ports, but sometimes reach as far west as Quebec City and Montreal. The Great Eastern and New England, which were joined in 2014 by a second Nor'Easter (the former Iver Progess, built in 2007), run usually to such ports as Portland and Boston.

All of the ships were retrofitted with exhaust gas scrubber systems (housed in a large white structure abaft the funnel).

On arrival Great Eastern anchored in the harbour until the East Coast had arrived May 3 and completed unloading and vacated the Woodside terminal berth May 4. It is rare to see two Irving Oil tankers in port at the same time. The domestic ship was given priority due to shorter terminal time, and "just in time" scheduling.

Irving Oil has committed to a charter with Algoma Central Corporation for two new 37,000 dwt ice class tankers to be built by Hyundai Mipo in Ulsan. The state of the art ships will be ethanol fuel ready and will have numerous other up-to-date features. Delivery is anticipated during the First Quarter of 2025. The ships will be Canadian flagged but will be suitable for trading to the usual US ports,  particularly Boston, which has a beam restriction of 27.4 meters (90 feet) at the Chelsea Street lift bridge on Chelsea Creek to reach Irving Oil's terminal in Revere, MA. 

Disposition of the other tankers, all but one of which will have reached the twenty-year mark next year, remains to be seen.

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