Capacity of oil tankers in seaborne trade 1980-2023

The capacity of the world oil tanker fleet grew considerably between 1980 and 2023. In 2023, the global oil tanker fleet had a combined capacity of around 651 million tons deadweight. In terms of tonnage, oil tankers accounted for around 29 percent of global seaborne trade that year.

Global oil tanker fleet

Despite the rising contribution of renewable sources to the global energy consumption, the global economy is still heavily dependent on oil. Since oil is the most used energy source, increasing energy demand contributes to oil drilling and transportation. This can be also observed in the growing capacity of oil tankers in global seaborne trade over recent decades. For example, in 2018, South Korea delivered oil tankers in excess of 11.8 million gross tons. As of April 2020, there were 810 very large crude carriers (VLCC) in the global fleet. On average, one VLCC can transport over two million barrels of crude oil. More than half of the global oil tanker fleet was less than 14 years old in 2020.

Oil spills

Petroleum extraction and transport are risky activities, which can severely damage the environment if not conducted in accordance with regulations. During the Atlantic Empress incident in 1979, over 287,000 metric tons of oil were spilled into the Caribbean Sea. This was the largest oil tanker disaster in the past 50 years. Recurring oil spills during the second half of the 20th century led to stricter international and national regulations for petroleum extraction, transportation, and production, to reduce the damage of the oil economy on the environment. These efforts were repaid: the average annual number of large oil spills worldwide decreased to 1.8 in the 2010-2019 decade, down from an average of 24.5 large oil spills per year between 1970 and 1979. However, oil spills have not been eliminated, despite the better control and diagnostic techniques. In 2019, roughly 1,000 metric tons of oil were leaked from tanker incidents.