Practical requirements
The requirements for carriage of vegetable oils vary widely depending on the type of oil, the trade lane and the area of the trade.
Tropical oils
Tropical oils in large volumes to Europe or the US require large ships with suitable last cargoes that are looking for a voyage into the Atlantic Basin. These voyages are often sought by new ships coming direct from the builder’s yards in Korea or China.
These ships are usually coated, often with epoxy; they are sought because the tropical oils help to ‘cure’ the newly-coated tanks; they do not yet have approval from the ‘oil majors’ (Shell, BP, Chevron, Petronas, etc); and/or they want this particular positioning voyage. The ability to heat the cargo is also of vital importance.
Tropical oils to China, Korea, Japan or east coast India normally require smaller ships; many of these will be dedicated to their trade and will often shuttle between the same two ports. They do not need to clean the tanks or heat the cargo on many of the voyages; thus the freight levels will be lower than other trade lanes.
Tropical oils to west coast India or the Arabian Gulf will require larger ships and will often need to clean the tanks after discharge in order to carry chemicals on the next voyage. Cleaning costs time and money and thus the owner will seek compensation for this in the freight rate.
There is a significant fleet of ships that are trading around north-west Europe carrying tropical oils from the main ports of Rotterdam or Amsterdam – often loading direct from a large ship arriving from Asia – to the ports around Europe that require smaller volumes.
Soft oils
The soft oils, such as soybean oil, corn oil, rapeseed oil (canola) and sunflower oil, have a different set of requirements.
Again, the trade area will determine the type of ship. South American oil to the Far East or India is usually carried in the larger ships due to the long voyage and the quantities in demand. These ships are ideal to reload tropical oils for their return voyage.
Soft oils to Europe will often move in smaller ships due to the large number of ports of call for discharging. The larger the ship, the higher the costs per port, so these ships try to limit the number of ports they call at, thus saving not only port costs but bunker fuel costs as well.
There is a large trade in sunflower oil from the Black Sea. Much of this is carried in small dedicated ships that can sail up the rivers to load and then distribute the oil around the Mediterranean economically.
All this has only scratched the surface of this enormous and complicated trade, but should give some idea of the overall complexity.
