By LARRY HAJNA
Courier-Post Staff
Longer than Philly's tallest skyscraper, the 1,098-foot Stena Vision is one monster oil tanker.
The biggest vessel ever to come up the Delaware River, in fact. Bigger than any tanker, battleship, or aircraft carrier before it.
The Stena Vision made its maiden voyage last week, delivering a million barrels of West African sweet crude to Sunoco's Fort Mifflin terminal.
Designed for the relatively shallow Delaware, its wide hull rides higher than other ships its size. This means it can carry larger quantities of oil upriver than ever before.
The Stena Vision is one of two sister ships known as Delaware V-Max tankers that Sunoco, the area's largest refiner, has chartered from Concordia Maritime AB of Sweden. The Stena Victory will begin deliveries this fall.
No doubt the ships mark a new era on the river. But what do they portend for the Army Corps of Engineers' plan to deepen the 40-foot shipping channel?
The advent of the big ships would seem to diminish the need to deepen the channel another five feet. Not so, says Sunoco. After initial reservations, Sunoco now supports the $311 million dredging project.
The big ships will save Sunoco money by bringing oil upriver more efficiently, but there are many more ships that can benefit from a deeper channel, including many of Sunoco's, company spokesman Gerald Davis said.
He said a deeper channel could still benefit the V-Max ships. Despite its special design, the 2.2-million-barrel Stena Vision had to unload nearly half its cargo in order to get up the river, once 50 miles off New Jersey and again at the mouth of Delaware Bay.
The latter transfer was onto three smaller ships. A typical million-barrel tanker must unload 30 to 40 percent of its cargo at the bay's mouth, usually onto one or two ships.
The Army Corps has always justified deepening the river solely on projections that refiners will save big bucks if they can transfer less oil onto smaller ships.
Could these ships provide a cost-effective alternative to dredging, one that doesn't rely on taxpayer subsidies? One might think it would cost more to unload a ship more times, but Sunoco wouldn't do this if it weren't going to save money.
Or do the big ships prove the channel must be deepened?
These are questions the federal General Accounting Office should ask as it continues its review of the economic justifications and environmental impacts of deepening the Delaware.
Because it seems the rules have changed.
To reach Larry Hajna, call (856) 486-2466 or e-mail him at lhajna@courierpostonline