Weakness in Size

What is as long as four football fields and big enough to carry three quarts of beer for every American over 18? Answer: any one of four Gulf Oil tankers, each of which can haul 326,000 tons of oil. They share the title of world's biggest tanker--but not for long. A tanker with a capacity of 372,000 deadweight tons (d.w.t.) will float out of a Japanese yard in 1971. Thereafter? Shipbuilders can make a tanker as capacious as anybody wants, but the idea hardly enchants them. They have problems enough building anything above 200,000 tons.

Haulers are demanding ever larger ships, and builders have to meet the orders so that competitors will not run away with them. Since 1968, the oil companies have put into service twelve ships of 200,000 tons or more--called "oilbergs"--and they have 170 more on order in yards from Bilbao to Yokohama. Last week California Standard contracted for a pair of 260,000-tonners from Japan's Mitsubishi. Britain's Scott Lithgow group two weeks ago landed its first order for an oilberg, a 250,000-tonner to be constructed for Anglo Norness, a Bermuda-based shipping company. The builder will launch the huge ship in two sections and weld them together in the water. "We don't know which half to christen first," says Ross Belch, a joint managing director. "We're not sure that we can afford two bottles of champagne."

Estimating on Hope. British, Swedish and West German builders have taken losses on the oilbergs. Because of technological quirks, the cost of a 200,000-tonner cannot be arrived at simply by doubling everything involved in turning out a 100,000-tonner. Germany's Howaldtswerke was seven months late in delivering the 191,000-ton Esso Malaysia because it sagged so badly on the trial run that it had to be reinforced with an extra 500 tons of steel. Sir John Hunter, chairman of Britain's Swan Hunter, concedes that "some of our costing estimates are still largely hopes."

Only Japan's builders, who lead the world in construction of the giant tankers, are making money on them. Though the Japanese compete fiercely with each other for orders, they have been sharing technological ideas since the Imperial Navy ordered them to do so before World War II. They have produced such innovations as computer-controlled cutting torches, self-propelled welders and devices that can flip over 80-ton subassemblies to make welding easier. These have helped reduce building costs from $91 a ton for a 100,000-d.w.t. tanker to $68 for a 300,000-tonner. Even the Japanese see an economic limit; they estimate that a 500,000-d.w.t. ship would cost them $80 a ton.

Toward a Million. The oil companies want bigger tankers because huge capacity makes it economical for their ships to bypass the blocked Suez Canal and lumber around the Cape of Good Hope to Europe or the Americas. The transport costs run to about 400 per bbl. in a 200,000-d.w.t. ship, compared with 520 in a 70,000-tonner. Each big ship can save a company about $1,000,000 a year in hauling costs.

U.S. yards have so far built nothing greater than 109,000 d.w.t. but Bethlehem Steel and Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock are gearing up to turn out tankers in the 200,000-d.w.t. class. Even those will seem small next to the foreign-built ships of the future. Japan's Nippon Kokan next month will open a dock that can accommodate an 800,000-tonner, and Belfast's Harland & Wolff is constructing a new facility that should be able to handle a million-d.w.t. vessel.

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