An Aframax vessel is an

oil tanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk cargo, bulk transport of petroleum, oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quant ...

with a deadweight between 80,000 and 120,000 metric tonnes. The term is based on the Average Freight Rate Assessment (AFRA), a tanker rate system created in 1954 by Shell Oil to standardize shipping contract terms. Due to their favorable size, Aframax tankers can serve most ports in the world. These vessels serve regions that do not have very large ports or offshore oil terminals to accommodate Very Large Crude Carriers and Ultra-Large Crude Carriers. Aframax tankers are optimal for short- to medium-haul crude oil transportation. Aframax class tankers are largely used in the basins of the Black Sea, the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

, the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

, the South and East China Seas, and the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

. Non– OPEC exporting countries may require the use of this type of vessel because the harbors and canals through which these countries export their oil are too small to accommodate the Suezmax or the larger categories. An Aframax tanker carries 600,000 barrels of oil as compared to larger tankers that may carry up to 2 million barrels of oil.

References

Ship types + Ship measurements {{Ship-type-stub

See also

References