Chemical tankers, as the name suggests, are commercial cargo ships designated to carry chemical substances in bulk liquid form from one point to another. Chemicals are widely procured, distributed, supplied, processed, and consumed for various purposes, ranging from industrial to agricultural to domestic.
The chemical cargo contents can vary, but for all practical purposes, inorganic chemical products such as acids, alcohols, toluene, benzenes, and so on are most common. Other contents of chemical tankers include organic products for agricultural or domestic usage, organic or inorganic oils, some special chemical substances for medicinal usage, biofuels, etc.
Chemical tankers are, for all practical purposes, smaller than oil tankers, ranging from as low as 5000 tonnes deadweight tonnage to at most 50000-60000 DWT for the biggest sizes.
The small size of these vessels can be due to several factors, such as port restrictions for loading and discharging these noxious substances, channel voyage restrictions for passage of these dangerous chemicals, the specialised nature of the cargo, and, of course, the lesser demand for chemical transport compared to other similar conventional types like oil and gas or freight cargo in bulk.
The main difference or typicality of chemical carriers arises from their internal structures, the cargo spaces, and the various systems running for the containment of such dangerous cargo in bulk that we shall discuss briefly.
