A Leader of the Seas in Liquid Transportation

Centenary celebrations were held in Bergen during 2015 by the chemical and gas tanker company Rederiet Odfjell A/S (Odfjell Steamship Co. Ltd.). The company has a Norwegian heritage but a global vision with origins that go back to Capt. Berent Daniel Olsen, who started in shipping as the Master of wooden sailing ships. His sons, Abraham and Frederik, experienced life on board sailing ships in their youth skippered by their father. Abraham obtained his Master’s certificate at the age of twenty years in 1901, and Frederik became part owner of a ship in 1903, but gave his name as Fredrik Olsen Odfjell, the latter a name derived from a headland near Loshavn. His two younger brothers followed his example and took up Odfjell as their surname in the following year of 1904. In the autumn of 1914 with World War I already begun, Capt. Fredrik Odfjell and Capt. Abraham Odfjell came ashore and set up Rederiet Odfjell A/S on a joint 50/50 basis. The houseflag adopted was three interlocked rings in yellow, red and blue, with one ring for each brother. This logo has been proudly displayed on the bows of all company ships ever since.

World War I

Capt. Abraham Odfjell and Capt. Fredrik Odfjell began by taking over the management of three single ship companies D/S Birk, D/S Furu and D/S Rogn, each owning a ship of that name. D/S Birk was registered on 17th November 1914, but the ship of this name was torpedoed and sunk during 1916 by an Austrian submarine. D/S Storli was taken over in May 1917 from its two Norwegian owners, but unfortunately their ship Storli sprang a leak and was abandoned sinking in the North Atlantic in October 1917. All of the crew were rescued, and the company name of D/S Storli was used by Odfjell for the next eighty years. During the war, six ships were lost to enemy action and two to marine causes, fortunately without any casualties among their crews.

The first tanker in the Odfjell fleet was purchased in 1916 and renamed Vaarli, and converted into a tanker of 8,800 dwt in 1921. She was a standard American war built engines aft ship built by the Sparrow Point yard of the Maryland Steel Company of Baltimore as Arborean. She had dimensions of length 389 feet by beam of 54.7 feet with a fo’c’stle of 26 feet and a poop of 94 feet, and was powered by a triple expansion steam engine by the builders. She had longitudinal framing and web frames to subdivide her cargo into many tanks, and was fitted with electric lights, radio and also for oil burning. She remained as the only Odfjell tanker until she was broken up in 1935.

Dry cargo vessels with black funnels and a central white band were also owned at first such as the steamer Birk of 7,400 dwt completed in 1920, the steamer Hassel of 6,500 dwt built on the Tyne in 1905 as King Arthur for King Line, and the steamer Gran of 1,983 grt built in 1919. Birk had been completed by the Duncan yard on the Clyde with a triple expansion steam engine giving a service speed of 9.5 knots. King Arthur had been built at Hebburn by Robert Stephenson & Co. Ltd. but had stranded in May, 1912, and was sold to Brazilian owners and was then purchased by Odfjell in 1915. She had four holds served by ten derricks with another two derricks to serve the cross bunker hatch abaft the bridge. She had a crew of 28 and traded for fourteen years until sold in 1929 to other Norwegian owners and renamed Maize. The Odfjell brothers were also trading in 1920 the small colliers older built in 1920 at Stavanger and Rogn built in 1903 by the Goole Shipbuilding and repairing Co. Ltd.

The Odfjell brothers then co-operated with the French Fabre Line during the inter-war years, and the motor vessels Cypria, Estrella and Gran were all on charter to Fabre Line, Cypria for seven years from 1931 to 1938. In 1938, four of the Odfjell fleet of six ships were on charter to Fabre Line. The twin screw B & W motorship Cypria of 7,650 dwt, completed in 1930, was a five hold ship with derricks on two masts and a set of posts for cargo handling. Cypria had a service speed of twelve knots from twin six-cylinder B & W diesels of 2,200 bhp. Estrella of 6,700 dwt was purchased in august, 1937 from Bergen Line, but had been built at Rotterdam in 1920 for K. Salvesen of Kragero in Norway. Estrella had a service speed of 11.5 knots from twin six-cylinder Werkspoor diesels of 2,300 bhp.

The spar decked big engines ‘midships steamer Selje of 12,200 dwt was the second last merchant ship from the Palmers yard at Jarrow in 1931, the yard closed two years later in the depths of the Depression. She had dimensions of length 448.3 feet by beam of 59.2 feet, and was sold in 1932 to the Tenax Steamship Co. Ltd. (William M. Young, London) but was repurchased by Odfjell three years later. She was the biggest of the Odfjell fleet during the inter-war years, and normally carried iron ore from Narvik to Rotterdam in her big holds, or coal from Newport News to Norwegian or European ports.

Two further cargo-liners were added in 1938 in the new motorship gran (2) of 7,700 dwt from the Burntisland yard, and the purchased twin screw motorship Gabon of 8,600 dwt completed in Sweden by Nya Aarvs A/B Oresund yard at Landskrona as Sunnanvik in April 1931 for victor Schreill of Norrkoping. Gabon was sold in 1934 to Gustav B. Bull of Sandefjord and renamed rose and then two years later to Cie Generale Cyprien Fabre of Le Havre and was renamed Gabon, passing a few months later to Odfjell.

World War II

Seven ships were owned at the beginning of World War II in Birk, Cypria, Estrella, Gabon, gran, Selje and the new engines aft coastal tanker Lind of 1,285 grt. Skibs A/S Oljetransport had been formed that year to own Lind. Three of the fleet were in home waters and four were abroad when Germany attacked Norway on 9th April 1940 and occupied the country after a two month campaign. Wartime losses of the seven ship Odfjell fleet included Birk, taken over in May, 1940 by German control and mined and sunk off Kirkenes on 15th February 1942 on mines laid by the Russian submarine K-23. Cypria under Capt. Arnfinn Syvertsen traded worldwide for five years under the Norwegian Nortraship organisation, either independently or in convoy, after sailing from Singapore on 30th October 1940. She arrived home at Bergen on 8th July 1945 from Rio de Janeiro via Kirkwall and was handed back to Odfjell and after a refit sailed from British and French ports to Montreal, New York, Cristobal, Balboa, Los Angeles, Shanghai and Manila, where she arrived on 22nd February 1946.

Selje normally carried Norwegian iron ore to European ports in peace time, and came under German control on the fall of Norway in June, 1940. She was sunk in an allied air strike on 15th May 1942 off the northern Dutch coast while on a voyage from Rotterdam to Norway with coal and coke. Estrella sailed from Necochea near Mar del Plata in Argentina on 6th April 1940 for New York, and then traded worldwide, either independently or in convoy, for Nortraship until her arrival on 11th December 1945 at New York after a transatlantic crossing from Barry and Belfast Lough with coal for St. John’s (NFL), Quebec, Montreal, Halifax (NS) and Portland (Maine). She arrived home in Bergen in early 1946 and underwent hull and engine repairs until august 1946. Gabon arrived at Dakar independently from Cape Town on 7th July 1940 and was interned under French control for the next three years. She sailed under British control on 6th March 1943 for Bathurst and loaded a West African cargo at Lagos, Calabar, Duala, Pointe Noire, Takoradi and Freetown for Liverpool, arriving in convoy SL132S on 22nd July 1943. She continued to trade in convoy to West African ports until the middle of November 1945, and was then handed back to Odfjell at Bergen for a well earned refit.

Gran (2) under Capt. Soren Waage was interned at Casablanca on 26th June 1940 and sailed three months later under a prize crew to Port Lyautey in Morocco escorted by an armed trawler. On 19th June 1941, she was taken over by the Vichy French and renamed Sainte Odette under French Line management. She was later seized by the German Kriegsmarine for conversion into a fighter direction ship, but was torpedoed and sunk on 28th December 1942 by the British submarine Ursula twelve miles north of Marettimo Island off western Sicily.

The engines aft coastal tanker Lind, the first of four ships of that name in the Odfjell fleet, became famous when she escaped internment in Sweden in April 1942. She reached Scotland safely under the command of Capt. H.A. Trovik as one of only two ships to do so during that particular breakout. She made such a slow speed across the North Sea that both the British and German searching ships were well out in their estimation of her position. They were, of course, searching for different reasons, the British to protect her and the Germans to sink her.

Post-War ‘Bow’ Ships

The war survivors Cypria, Estrella and Gabon, the latter renamed older in 1946, were joined by war replacement tonnage in two ‘C1’ types, Cape Boyer and Cape Porpoise, in 1946 and renamed as Bowplate and Bowhill respectively. This standard pair of ships was traded for nine years on charter to the international Freight Corporation (IFC) of the U.S.A., a DuPont subsidiary, for voyages to Brazil and Argentina from 1946. Ports of call were New York to Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. The first ship used on the service was Bowhill, named from the IFC President Bowers and vice President Hill. The cargo ships had ‘IFC LINES’ in white letters on their black hulls, and black funnels with ‘IFC’ in black on a central white band.

A new motortramp was completed at Burntisland in July 1947 as Bowgran for charter to IFC. She was a shelterdecker with a cruiser stern and was powered by a four cylinder Doxford oil engine manufactured at Newcastle by Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. Ltd. a move to continue the trading of coastal tankers was made in 1946 under the leadership of the cousins Bernt Daniel Odfjell and Johan Odver Odfjell, sons of Fredrik Odfjell and Abraham Odfjell respectively. They purchased the tanker Jungfersand of 1,500 dwt and renamed her Hegg, and built Lind (2) of 1,677 dwt in 1949 at Stockholm. The fleet in 1950 thus comprised nine ships with both cargo-liners and coastal tankers.

Six dry cargo ships were then built during the 1950s, two of them carrying the ‘Bow’ prefix on charter to IFC, a nomenclature that was later to become standard for the company. Bow Santos of 7,700 dwt was launched by the Aberdeen yard of Hall, Russell & Co. Ltd. on 24th august 1953 by Miss Lilly Kool-Odfjell. Bow Santos was a grey hulled shelterdecker with three holds forward of the bridge and two aft on dimensions of length 425 feet, beam of 58 feet and a summer draft of 25 feet. She was built for Skibs a/S Hassel, one of the Odfjell companies, with a raked stem and cruiser stern. She carried fuel oil and water ballast in the double bottom and water ballast in the fore and aft peaks. A deep tank was fitted forward of the machinery spaces for the carriage of vegetable oil. She had three bipod masts and four derrick posts for her sixteen derricks of up to eight tonnes capacity plus a 25 tonne capacity derrick at no. 2 hatch.

Bow Santos had sixteen electric winches plus an electric capstan, windlass and electro-hydraulic steering gear controlled from the bridge. Accommodation was provided for twelve passengers in comfortable two berth staterooms on Bridge Deck, with heating by radiators or electric heaters. Two wooden lifeboats, one of which was motor driven, were carried on low gravity davits plus a dinghy and three life rafts. In the event of fire, smoke detector alarms and carbon dioxide extinguishers would automatically be activated, plus a diesel driven pump in the engine room for emergency use. A Wilton-Doxford five cylinder opposed piston diesel of 5,500 bhp at 112 rpm was fitted, manufactured by Wilton-Fijenoord NV of Schiedam to give a service speed of 14 knots. There was also three diesel driven generator sets for auxiliary power in the engine room. The navigating bridge had the latest radio, radar, gyrocompass and echo sounding gear. A crew of 35 was carried accommodated aft, with only the Master, Navigating officer and two stewardesses accommodated ‘midships.

Bow Santos entered service on 14th January 1954 and gave seven years service to Odfjell and was then sold on in 1961. She later foundered on 12th June 1977 in the Indian Ocean during a cyclone under the name of Bukom Island while on a voyage from Um Said to Singapore with the loss of seven of her crew. The very similar Bow Plate of 7,300 dwt was completed by the Uddevallavarvet yard in Sweden in 1955 for Skibs a/S Hassel, although varying a few feet in length and one foot less in beam. Bow Plate, Bow Santos, Bowgran, Bowplate, and Bowhill, and other similar ships owned by Oivind Lorentzen a/S of Oslo, were all chartered to the international Freigh Corporation (IFC) during the 1950s. Bow Plate was sold to Norwegian Amerika Line in 1964 for Transatlantic service as Sunndalsfjord, and was later broken up in 1980 at Kaohsiung as Fullwind Lucky.

Two larger dry cargo ships of 12,620 dwt were taken on long term charter by Saguenay Terminals Ltd. of Montreal for bauxite trading from the Caribbean as Sungran in 1955 and Sunoak in 1956. They were built as open shelterdeckers but had scantlings suiting them for service as closed shelterdeckers. The pair were ice strengthened for service on the St. Lawrence and could also carry iron ore. They had dimensions of lengths of 467.2 feet, beam of 60.9 feet, and a draft of 26.4 feet as open shelterdeckers. Cargo handling derricks were fitted on three bipod masts to serve the five holds, and two deep tanks were fitted aft of the engine room to carry vegetable oil or dry cargo. A six cylinder two stroke single acting Gotaverken diesel of 5,400 bhp gave a service speed of 15 knots.

A near sister, Hassel of 12,500 dwt, was also completed in 1956 by the Bergens M.V. yard, and another named older of 12,700 dwt in 1959, with the same size and type of diesel engine giving a service speed of 14.5 knots. They continued the Fabre Line charters that Odfjell had begun during the inter-war years. Seventeen cargo derricks worked cargo from the five holds of cubic capacity 665,000 cubic feet and included a heavy lift derrick of 30 tonnes capacity. They were suitable for charter to liner companies or for general tramping, and both had accommodation for twelve passengers in first class cabins.

Stainless Steel Tankers

Funnel colours were now a bright yellow with a black top and three central linked blue, white and red rings, with the yellow house flag bearing the same coloured rings. A series of coastal tankers were also operated during the 1950s, in asp, Birk and Hegg of 2,800 dwt built in 1951, Selje of 1,238 dwt, Lind of 1,677 dwt, Valnor of 2,000 dwt, and Lonn and Rogn of 3,250 dwt built in 1954 by Haugesund Mekaniske Verksted. However, in order to carry acid and carbide cargoes, new stainless steel tanks were fitted into Lind of 2,445 dwt completed in 1960 as the first stainless steel tanker in the world. She was followed by the sisters EK and Oak of 4,000 dwt in 1963, the sisters Liana and Lotos of 4,100 dwt in 1965/66, Selje of 8,335 dwt in 1964, Hassel of 4,040 dwt in 1965, and the sisters Birk and Lonn of 14,200 dwt in 1967. All were completed by the Akers yard at Oslo or the Trondheims yard and powered by B & W or Werkspoor diesel engines to give service speeds of fourteen knots. Liana served Odfjell for ten years and sailed approximately 650,000 nautical miles carrying almost half a million tonnes of liquid cargo and visited 157 ports in 48 different countries.

Fredrik Odfjell had died in 1950 and his brother Abraham Odfjell died in 1960, and their sons, Bernt Daniel Odfjell born in New Orleans in 1908, and Johan Odvar Odfjell, succeeded them. Bernt Daniel Odfjell controlled the dry cargo vessels during the 1950s, and Johan Odvar Odfjell masterminded the move from dry cargo vessels to chemical tankers. The third generation of the Odfjell family, Daniel Odfjell son of Bernt Daniel Odfjell, was active in the shipping business from 1963. Daniel Odfjell was born in 1938 and graduated from the Norwegian Naval College in 1957, and then completed his training on company ships and in New York shipbroker offices. His first move in improving the profitability of the company was to establish an in-house chartering department, Minde Chartering, named after the village of Minde near Bergen where Odfjell was based. This was the first step to a fully integrated shipping company, with its own chartering, operations and technical management departments. Minde Chartering quickly became a key broker within the niche trades of the chemical transport industry.

During the 1960s, a conscious crucial shift was implemented by the Odfjell group away from general cargo tonnage into the new specialised parcel tanker market. The last new Odfjell dry cargo ship was the engines aft Cedar of 17,127 dwt built in 1963 by the Gotaverken yard and powered by an eight cylinder diesel engine manufactured by the builders to give a service speed of 15.5 knots. Cedar was traded by Odfjell for a few years and then sold to the great Eastern Shipping Co. Ltd. of India and renamed Jag Anand.

Odfjell Parcel Tankers

Liquid oil and chemical cargoes were the future, along with tank terminals in South America in the late 1960s to supplement the shipping activities, and pool partnerships were sought with other shipowners, particularly Westfal Larsen of Bergen. All of the Odfjell tankers fitted with stainless steel tanks and built during the 1960s retained conventional cargo pump rooms. The next development was three stainless steel tankers built in 1969 of 10,000 dwt as Bow Lind, Bow gran and Bow Rogn by the Moss Verft yard. They had double hulls along their entire cargo sections, but more importantly two larger tankers of 22,000 dwt also built in 1969, Bow Cedar and her sister ship Orkanger for Westfal Larsen were fitted with deepwell pumps in some tanks in addition to conventional pump rooms for the remaining tanks.

This important development allowed complete segregation of many cargoes in many tanks of parcel tankers had been pioneered by the young Jacob Stolt- Nielsen Junior of Haugesund in 1955. He personally supervised the conversion of the Norwegian tanker Freddy of 13,500 dwt, owned by Johs. Hansens Rederi A/S of Oslo, into the first parcel tanker in the world at Galveston. The old piping, fittings and pumps were ripped out, and a new safe vertical piping system and sixteen submersible deepwell pumps were installed, one in each tank. All of this work was carried out without plans and under the sole direction of Jacob Stolt-Nielsen Junior.

Stolt-Nielsen and Odfjell led the way in carrying up to fifty different liquid cargoes in one tanker in one voyage, each in their own segregated tank and with their own cargo line. Liquids carried included caustic soda, styrene, formaldehyde, ethylene, butane, propane, paraffin wax, polypropylene, paraffin, resins, polyol, lube oils, isopropyl alcohol, toluene, chlorinated organics, xylene, solvent naptha, additives, brake fluid, solvents, white spirit, methyl isobutyl, hexane, alcohols, acetones, acetates, olefins, butadiene, phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, vegetable oils of all types e.g. palm oil and soya bean oil, molasses and many other types of liquids. All of the Odfjell fleet can switch between different cargoes with the minimum of automatic tank cleaning. The Odfjell fleet began to receive its new trademark orange hull protection in 1969 of a new type of polyurethane based paint for rust protection.

Odfjell B76 Polish Built Tankers

In 1971, two Odfjell cousins, Bernt Daniel Odfjell and Johann Oddvar Odfjell, were in charge of the Odfjell group. The co-operation with Westfal Larsen of Bergen in the parcel tanker markets was already well established at this point in time. Contacts were then made by the young Daniel Odfjell, together with the Chairman of Westfal Larsen, with the Polish State shipbuilding Centromor organisation in Norway and its representative, Einar Moen. A yard in Szczecin near the border with East Germany signed a contract with the Bergen partnership of Odfjell and Westfal Larsen in 1973 for a total of a dozen ships, six for Odfjell and six for Westfal Larsen. The B76 design from Poland had 38 tanks of differing volume capacity together with four cylindrical deck tanks. The centre tanks and deck tanks were built of stainless steel, the remaining tanks were of ordinary steel coated with zinc silicate. Acid cargo could be carried in the centre tanks, while the varying size of the remaining tanks was ideal for the U.S. gulf to Far East trade of Union Carbide, Odfjell’s largest customer at that time.

The B76 hulls were double skin over part of the cargo section, and two dry transverse cofferdams were inserted to give extra cargo separation. The cargo pump rooms were now redundant as deepwell pumps were fitted in every tank with its own dedicated pipework on deck. All ballast and void tanks were fully coated with epoxy paint. The B76 class had 43 segregated tanks and were of 28,000 dwt and powered by a Sulzer rND90 diesel engine of 17,400 bhp built by the H. Cieielski factory in Poznan to give a high service speed of 18 knots in good weather conditions. Bow Fortune, lead ship of the series, sailed on her maiden voyage in November 1975, and was followed by Bow Sea, Bow Sky, Bow Spring, Bow Star, Bow Sun, Brimanger, Nordanger, Porsanger, Risanger, Spinanger and Torvanger over the next twenty six months. Two very similar but larger parcel tankers of 31,500 dwt, were completed by the Wartsila yard in Helsinki at this time as Bow Fagus and Bow Flower, all of these tankers having orange hulls.

The B76 class of parcel tanker formed the backbone of the Odfjell fleet for the next thirty years. Mainstream cargo operations continued until 2007 with Bow Condor, the former Bow Sea, owned jointly with Odfjell y Vapores of Chile. Odfjell Ship Management were still managing the former Spinanger in 2007 as the Saudi owned NCC Yamamah, both tankers going to the scrapyards during 2007. The B76 class of parcel tankers were very flexible in their cargo tank layout and made them among the best parcel tankers ever built. The co-operation with Westfal Larsen was strengthened in 1980 by the establishment of OWL Tankers, but Westfal Larsen exited the chemical parcel tanker business at the end of 1989. A $280 million deal saw Odfjell take over the Westfal Larsen parcel tankers, their 50% share in OWL Tankers, and the Baytank Terminal. A year later Odfjell established a joint venture with the National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (NSCSA). The nine tankers it had acquired from Westfal Larsen were transferred into the National Chemical Carriers (NCC) fleet of Saudi Arabia.

Odfjell Drilling and A Family Split

A new headquarters office was opened in 1973 at Minde near Bergen, and the business was split into two parts, with a/S Rederiet Odfjell for the shipping business and a/S Odfjell Drilling for offshore oil exploration. The latter expansion was marred by the loss of the first drill rig in 1976 when it ran aground as it returned to shallow water for maintenance, with the unfortunate loss of six crew members. The year of 1979 saw the assets of the Odfjell family, amassed over more than sixty years in shipping, divided between the two cousins Daniel Odfjell and Abraham Odfjell of the third generation of the family.

Two new shipping companies were set up, with Abraham Odfjell then set up in business separately as a/S Jo Odfjell, which then placed its operations into the joint venture a/S Jo Tankers with Johnson Line of Sweden. A big fleet was owned with the prefix ‘Jo’ to their names. A subsidiary was set up in Holland in 1981 as Jo Tankers BV, and Jo Odfjell later acquired full control of Jo Tankers a/S to become a major worldwide parcel tanker business. A large fleet of twenty parcel tankers was owned by Millennium year. Jo ask, Jo Birk, Jo Calluna, Jo Cedar, Jo Clipper, Jo Ebony, Jo Eik, Jo Elm, Jo gran, Jo Lind, Jo Lonn, Jo oak, Jo Rogn, Jo Selje, Jo Sypress, Jo Spruce, and Jo Brevik owned by ASA Borgestad a/S, and Ellen Knutsen, Kristin Knutsen and Synnove Knutsen managed for Knutsen O.A.S. Shipping a/S of Norway.

Many of these ‘Jo’ parcel tankers perpetuated names of the long Odfjell tanker history. Jo Tankers UK Ltd. was formed in 2003, and the present fleet contains the new parcel tankers of Jo Sycamore, Jo Sequoia, Jo Kashi, Jo Kiri of 37,500 dwt, as well as Jo Betula and Jo Acer in the range of 25,000 dwt to 29,000 dwt. all of these new tankers were in service by 2004. Four large parcel tankers of 75,000 dwt and 84,500 cubic metres capacity were also placed in service in 2012/13 as Jo Pinari, Jo Provel, Jo rowan and Jo redwood. This quartet have an overall length of 750 feet, moulded beam of 106 feet and a summer draft of 48 feet, with fourteen cargo tanks, and are powered by a two stroke single acting B & W-M.A.N. diesel engine to give service speeds of 14.6 knots. Two sisters of this large type of parcel tanker are due in service by 2015. The Jo Tanker funnel colours are blue with a white interlinked ‘Jo’ symbol, and hull colours are orange with ‘Jo TANKERS’ in large blue letters.

Kvaerner Class Parcel Tankers

in 1983/84, the partners in OWL Tankers, Odfjell and Westfal Larsen, had taken delivery of two parcel tankers of 23,000 dwt from the Korean Daewoo yard, the first ships ever built by the yard. Bow Hunter, the second Odfjell tanker from the yard, has now been preserved as a museum ship at the yard in Korea. Odfjell parcel tankers used the new red chain logo on a white funnel at this point of time. In 1988, four of the Polish built tankers sold to Saudi Arabian owners were repurchased. Three more tankers were purchased from Gotaas-Larsen and renamed Bow Lady, Bow Princess and Bow Queen, and eight tankers were purchased from John Fredriksen of Norway for the Odfjell and Westfal Larsen fleets.

Newer parcel tankers, built by the several yards in the Kvaerner shipbuilding network, began to take over the burden of Odfjell worldwide parcel tanker operations in 1994. The Kvarener yards at Floro in Norway and Govan on the Clyde built sixteen ‘Kvaerner Class’ parcel tankers of 37,500 dwt between 1993 and Millennium year. The first from the Clyde yard was launched by H. M. The Queen as Jo Selje for the associated Jo Tankers and completed in October 1993. The class have complete double skin hulls with a two metre separation, and forty of their 52 tanks are made of stainless steel. The other Govan built parcel tankers were Bow Flower, Bow Clipper, NCC Riyad for the associated National Chemical Carriers of Saudi Arabia, and Jo Sypress. The Floro built parcel tankers were Bow Fagus, Bow Cedar, Bow Faith, Bow Cardinal, Bow Flora, Bow Cecil, Bow Fortune, Bow Century, NCC Mekka, NCC Jubail, Jo Cedar and Jo Spruce.

By 1996, Odfjell Parcel Tankers became the largest owner of chemical tankers in the world with forty ships deployed of 1.2 million dwt, and they transported fifteen million tonnes of cargo each year covering 355 different grades of petroleum oils, vegetable oils, chemicals, carbides and acids. Odfjell had 22% of the world deep sea parcel tanker market, followed by Stolt-Nielsen, Seachem of Greece, and Jo Tankers in that order.

Odfjell had a joint pool collaboration with National Chemical Carriers (NCC) of Saudi Arabia, and the group also had extensive trading agreements with the State owned Pemex of Mexico, and van Ommeren Tank Terminals in Rotterdam from 1992 and in China from 1994. Tank terminals were owned in Rotterdam (300 tanks), South America, Houston (opened in 1983), Singapore, China and Korea. The owned tankers were Bow Cedar, Bow Eagle, Bow Fighter, Bow Flower, Bow Fortune, Bow Gerd, Bow Heron, Bow Hunter, Bow Lady, Bow Lancer, Bow Leopard, Bow Lion, Bow Mariner, Bow Panther, Bow Petros, Bow Pioneer, Bow Princess, Bow Queen, Bow Saphir, Bow Sea, Bow Sky, Bow Spring, Bow Star, Bow Sun, Bow Transporter, Bow Viking and Owl Trader. The many chartered tankers included Bow Trigger, Bow Triumph and Bow Trident on charter from Mitsui O.S.K Lines. A tank container business was also operated between 1998 and 2004 with Hoyer of Germany.

Odfjell Seachem Tankers

Despite the expansion of its fleet, Odfjell had temporarily slipped back into second position in the world at the end of 1999. However, during February of Millennium year, the Seachem parcel tanker fleet of Ceres Hellenic Shipping Enterprises Ltd. of Piraeus, owned by Peter Livanos, merged with Odfjell Parcel Tankers, adding nine more parcel tankers renamed with ‘Bow’ names in a $360 million deal. The orange hulls of the merged fleet then bore ‘ODFJELL SEACHEM’ in large blue letters. Ceres Hellenic also had a large fleet of forty Handysize, Aframax, Suezmax and VLCC tankers, which were not included in the merger. Two further Seachem parcel tankers were taken over for $32 million in 2004, followed by sixteen more in 2006. Odfjell Seachem then had 26% of the global chemical shipping market.

The big Botlek Tanker Terminal in Rotterdam was acquired in 2000, but by the end of 2001, there was a very competitive and price sensitive global chemical shipping market that was heading into rough waters. Consolidation of this market had produced Odfjell, Stolt Nielsen, Tokyo Marine and Jo tankers. This led to abuses of the cartel price fixing laws and fines for some of these operators. The coastal parcel tankers of Flumar Brazil were half acquired in 2004 with the remaining 50% acquired in 2008.

By the end of 2006, Odfjell Seachem had a large fleet of 57 owned or part owned parcel tankers, 35 time chartered parcel tankers, with 28 newbuildings on order with worldwide shipyards. Odfjell Seachem was then undisputed leaders of the worldwide parcel tanker industry with almost 30% of the market and annual sales in excess of $750 million. A joint venture with Ahrenkiel of Germany in 2004 accounted for a further eight tankers, and a number of partnerships were formed a year later with Chinese companies, largely to serve their domestic market e.g. with Dalian Port authority to build a tank terminal in Caofeidian industrial Zone in Hebei province.

Seventy five of this big fleet had ‘Bow’ prefixes to their names, and six had ‘NCC’ prefixes to their names. Four Ahrenkiel sister tankers of 5,870 dwt with ‘Multitank’ prefixes to their names were purchased for $54 million and renamed Bow Bahia, Bow Bracaria, Bow Brasilia and Bow Balearia for coastal operations. The chartered parcel tanker Bow Fuji of 19,800 dwt was delivered for service in December 2006 for participation in the Odfjell Asian fleet. She is owned by Yuyo Steamship inc. of Japan and managed by v Ships Asia. Eight parcel tankers were chartered from Nisshin Kaiun KK when completed during 2006/08 as Bow Hector, Bow Heron, Bow Octavia, Bow Olivia, Bow Omaria, Bow Ophelia, Bow Orania and Bow Orelia.

Loss of Bow Mariner

Unfortunately, Bow Mariner exploded and sank on 28th February 2004 with the loss of 21 of her 27 crew off Virginia while on a voyage from New York to Houston with 11,000 tonnes of methanol. The cause was human error while cleaning and gas freeing residual methyl tert-butyl ether from the empty tanks. The Master gave the order to open all empty tank hatches, a breach of normal safe practice, and allowed the very flammable vapours to accumulate on deck and explode. She had been completed as atlas Mariner of 39,820 dwt in 1982 at the Brodogradiliste yard in Yugoslavia, and was purchased in 1991, powered by a five cylinder Sulzer engine of 11,800 bhp giving a service speed of 14.5 knots.

Bow Star of 39,832 dwt built in 2004 ran aground leaving the Indonesian port of Batam on 13th September 2007 and her refloating took some weeks of offloading her cargo.

Later Developments

A dozen coastal parcel tankers are currently operated around European ports, five around Brazil and South America, and nine around Asia and Pacific coasts e.g. Bow Balearia, Bow Bracaria, Bow Brasilia, Bow Bahia, Bow Querida, Bow Master, Bow Mate, Bow Pilot, and Bow Sailor. The newest parcel tankers in the fleet are of 40,000 dwt, and those built from 2001 are Bow Favour, Bow Chain, Bow Firda, Bow Sun, Bow Star, Bow Spring, Bow Sky, Bow Summer, and Bow Sea, all with up to 47 fully segregated tanks.

Tank terminals owned or part owned are Rotterdam (300 tanks), Houston (92 tanks), Singapore (51 tanks), Dalian and Ningbo in China (75 tanks) and Korea (39 tanks). The Dalian Tank Terminal was a joint venture signed in 2007, however the Tank Terminals Division accounts for only 3% of turnover, with Odfjell Parcel Tankers accounting for 97% of turnover. associated tank terminals are owned in Buenos Aires and Campana (Argentina), Santos, Rio Grande, Sao Luis and Ladario (Brazil), San Antonio (Chile) and Lima in Peru.

A big step forward in the size of Odfjell parcel tankers was taken with the new Bow Pioneer of 75,000 dwt completed in June 2013. She is the largest parcel tanker in the world, and perpetuates the name of an earlier parcel tanker also built by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) in Korea in 1982. The Bow Pioneer has an exact sister named NCC Fajr completed six months later in December 2013, and both vessels operate in a pool commercially managed by National Chemical Carriers (NCC) in Dubai. The two companies have co-operated for twenty years with stainless steel parcel tankers, but the operation of their smaller 45,000 dwt coated chemical tankers has now been discontinued. Two new parcel tankers of 45,000 dwt were named together on 28th January 2014 at a ceremony at the Hyundai Mipo Dockyard. Bow Tribute and Bow Trajectory are long term bareboat chartered from Saltholmen Shipping of Lillesand and two further sisters are also due to be completed at this yard.

Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG)

The history of Odfjell activities in the liquid gas and ethylene fields goes back to 1965 with gazelle of 2,000 cubic metres capacity, followed by Gazania of 3,000 cubic metres capacity in 1967, and the bigger liquid gas carrier Cypress of 22,205 cubic metre capacity in 1969. The latter gas tanker was built by the La Ciotat yard on the south coast of France and powered by Fiat diesel engines. Bow Elm was delivered in 1971 as one of the most advanced gas tankers ever built, able to cool cargoes down to minus 104 degrees Centigrade, or heat cargoes up to plus 85 degrees Centigrade. Odfjell exited the gas trades in 1987 with the sale of Bow Elm, but re-entered 25 years later in 2012 with the purchase of two liquid gas and ethylene tankers of 9,000 cubic metres capacity renamed as Bow Gallant and BowGuardian. a quartet of larger gas tankers of 17,000 cubic metres capacity, two delivered in late 2015 and two due during 2016 from the Nantong Sinopacific shipyard in China. A further quartet of LPG and ethylene tankers of 22,000 cubic metres capacity was ordered on 16th May 2014 from the same yard for delivery between September 2016 and June 2017 at a total cost of $200 million.

Postscript

Odfjell SE is today a very large e operator of chemical parcel tankers and liquid gas and ethylene tankers with a fleet of over a hundred owned and chartered tankers of 2.2 million deadweight tonnes. The private shipping company of Skibs a/S Storli had been floated on the Oslo stock exchange in 1986, and this holding company for registering the Odfjell parcel tankers changed its name to Odfjell SE in 1998 and has 3,500 employees worldwide today. Annual turnover is in the region of $1.2 billion.

In its centenary year of 2015, the current Chairman Laurence Ward Odfjell, writing in the Odfjell quarterly magazine, proudly describes his great great grandfather Capt. Berent Daniel Olsen and his service on wooden sailing ships. Odfjell have a splendid record of owning all types of tankers including coastal tankers, chemical parcel tankers, and liquid petroleum gas and ethylene tankers, and vegetable oil tankers. Laurence Ward Odfjell was born in 1965 as the son of Dan Odfjell, and first worked as an architect in Chile, where he designed the winery of Odfjell vineyards. He then worked on the company South American tank terminals and became a director of Odfjell SE in 2004. He succeeded his father as Executive Chairman on 4th May 2010.

Odfjell SE is a world leading specialist provider of deep sea transportation, storage and related services for the global chemicals market. It operates two Divisions, namely Parcel Tankers and Tank Terminals, the latter in Rotterdam, Houston, China, Iran, Oman, Singapore and South Korea. Parcel tanker owners usually traded within consortia for financial reasons, however Odfjell mostly chose the traditional chartering method of increasing its fleet. It was not unusual to see a chartered tanker with Odfjell funnel markings and flying the chartered owner’s houseflag on the navigating mast. Funnel colours are now white with a black top bearing a blue diagonal linked chain logo. Odfjell SE is based in Bergen, with subsidiaries in Shanghai, Dalian, Korea, Rotterdam, Brazil, Chile, Oman and Singapore.