Oil & Gas Journal changed more than its look in May 2000: With one of those design changes, OGJ formalized recognition of its regular coverage of all modes of hydrocarbon transportation, not just pipelines. Hence this week's special report on Tankers and Terminals.
This expanded coverage recognizes the importance especially of marine transportation in ensuring petroleum markets are served from such new supply areas as the Caspian Sea and Offshore Africa.
And that recognition reveals much about what Journal editors see as their mission: We are daily aware of the responsibility that our heritage as a "horizontal" magazine lays at our feet-or, rather, on our desks. More about that heritage presently.
Reader response has been positive, coverage has been increasing, and new sources of information for this editor appear more frequently.
In fact, one became available earlier this year and promises to be an important resource for many years to come. In February, the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (Intertanko), London and Oslo, published (and sells for $45) A Century of Tankers by John Newton.
As have many other perspectives on the last century, it demonstrates how far human commercial activity came between 1900 and 2000.
Tankers' century
Subtitled "From sail to steam, from wood to iron and steel, from barrels to bulk," the book traces how demand for oil and growing competition among oil companies for "more of the market for [kerosine] and other refined products" drove tanker evolution.
The volume notes important vessels whose activity set historic thresholds for maritime petroleum transportation: The Gluckauf, built in 1886, is generally thought of as the forerunner of the modern oil tanker; the Murex, built in 1892, was the first vessel allowed to carry oil in bulk through the Suez Canal following new regulations issued by the Suez Canal Authorities; and the T-2 tanker, the workhorse of World War II, was the model for postwar tanker fleets.
The book documents growth in tanker size and numbers. In 1900, there were fewer than 150 oceangoing tankers. By the late 1990s, there were nearly 3,500.
The size of the average tanker grew to 100,000 dwt in 1979 from about 5,000 dwt in 1900. Since 1979, Newton notes, the number declined slowly and appears to have leveled at about 88,000 dwt in 2000.
Significantly influencing tanker size was the 1967-75 closure of the Suez Canal that caused lengthy diversions of tankers around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. This reinforced the trend towards larger vessels, says the history, to achieve economies of scale as large volumes of Middle East oil moved around the cape to the US and Europe.
Newton describes developments in tanker shipping against a backdrop of the rise of the Middle East as the world's major oil producing area, the economic boom of the 1960s that led to overly optimistic tanker ordering and subsequent surplus of tonnage, political events in the Middle East, and the formation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Also, he reviews the influences of legislation and regulation on the tanker industry along with environmental and safety issues raised by such high-profile incidents as spills from the Torrey Canyon, Amoco Cadiz, and Exxon Valdez.
Developments in construction methods led to introduction of double hulls and implementation of several other safety measures and practices during the 1990s that have improved the tanker safety record.
OGJ's century
Historical perspective is much on the minds of Journal editors these days, having celebrated on May 24 the magazine's 100 years of existence.
At a celebration in early May, OGJ Publisher Tom Terrell rolled out a series of industry-milestone posters that blended important oil and gas industry events with major dates in the Journal's history. These posters will be available to Journal subscribers later this year.
They are an impressive and graphic display of just how deeply intertwined has been the 20th Century-a century of oil-with Oil & Gas Journal, itself a record of that industry's century every bit as much as Newton's book is a record of the tankers' century.
That blending of events says as much as anything about the Journal's commitment to providing the industry-in all its segments-with the latest, most accurate information possible.
And tankers comprise one of those important segments.
