Dirty tanker
Meaning
A dirty tanker carries crude oil or dirty petroleum products such as fuel oil, which can't follow straight into a clean product without major cleaning.
Also written as Crude tanker, DPP, Dirty petroleum products
Dirty tanker explained
VLCCs, Suezmaxes and most Aframaxes trade dirty. Moving a ship from dirty to clean service takes extensive cleaning, sometimes several voyages of progressively cleaner cargoes.
Related terms
Clean tanker
A clean tanker carries refined clean products such as gasoline, naphtha, jet fuel and diesel, usually with coated tanks to protect cargo quality.
Tank cleaning
Tank cleaning is washing a tanker's cargo tanks between cargoes so the next cargo is not contaminated, especially when switching grades.
VLCC
A VLCC is a very large crude carrier of roughly 200,000 to 320,000 deadweight tonnes, carrying about 2 million barrels of crude oil.