Chemical Tankers for Sale

Chemical tankers built after 1 July 1986 must comply with the IBC Code under both SOLAS and MARPOL, and the Code identifies the ship type required for each product. What a ship may carry therefore depends on its type under the Code: ask for the certificate listing the products it is approved for, and check it against the cargoes you plan.^[1]

MARPOL Annex II sorts noxious liquid substances into categories X, Y and Z by the hazard they present, prohibits discharge of category X, limits Y and Z, and holds ships built on or after 1 January 2007 to a maximum residue of 75 litres. Ask for the stripping test results and the Procedures and Arrangements Manual that go with the ship.^[1]

A chemical/oil tanker is also an oil tanker under MARPOL Annex I: the double-hull rules of regulation 19 apply to it as to any oil tanker of 5,000 dwt and above ordered after 6 July 1993.^[2]

Start with class. When a ship moves between IACS member societies, the gaining society obtains the ship’s current status directly from the losing one under the transfer-of-class agreement, and the class entry survey it then carries out is set by the ship’s age and the losing society’s class status — from an annual survey for a ship under five years old up to a special survey at 20 years and over. A ship coming from a domestic register (ZC, China’s, is common in this list) is not a transfer between IACS members; ask the society you intend to class with what its entry survey will cover before you make an offer.^[3]

Ask for the records the class societies themselves review on a transfer: damages, major repairs, hull conversions and machinery alterations with their dates, the condition evaluation or hull summary report where one exists, the history of conditions of class, thickness measurements from the last special survey (including areas of substantial corrosion), the report of that survey and the periodical reports since, the coating condition of the water ballast tanks, and any restriction on the navigation area.^[4]

Check the ship on Equasis, which publishes safety-related information on ships and companies free of charge to registered users, against the particulars in the listing.^[5]

The Ballast Water Management Convention has been in force since 8 September 2017: every ship implements a Ballast Water Management Plan and carries a Ballast Water Record Book, and the regulation D-2 standard limits the organisms a ship may discharge with its ballast water. Ask whether a treatment system is fitted and approved, or what fitting one would involve.^[6]