Tanker (ship)
ship designed to transport liquids or gases in bulk
A tanker (or tank ship or tankship) is a ship designed to transport or store liquids or gases in bulk. Major types of tanker ship include the oil tanker (or petroleum tanker), the chemical tanker, cargo ships, and a gas carrier. Tankers also carry commodities such as vegetable oils, citrus juice, molasses, and wine.
In the United States Navy and Military Sealift Command, a tanker used to refuel other ships is called an oiler (or replenishment oiler if it can also supply dry stores) but many other navies use the terms tanker and replenishment tanker.
Tankers were first developed in the late 19th century as iron and steel hulls and pumping systems were developed. As of 2005, there were just over 4,000 tankers and supertankers 10,000 LT DWT or greater operating worldwide.
Description
Tankers can range in size of capacity from several hundred tons, which includes vessels for servicing small harbours and coastal settlements, to several hundred thousand tons, for long-range haulage. Besides ocean- or seagoing tankers there are also specialized inland-waterway tankers which operate on rivers and canals with an average cargo capacity up to some thousand tons. A wide range of products are carried by tankers, including:
Hydrocarbon products such as oil, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and liquefied natural gas (LNG)
Chemicals, such as ammonia, chlorine, and styrene monomer
Fresh water
Wine
Molasses
Citrus juice
Tankers primarily date from the later years of the 19th century. Before this, technology had simply not supported the idea of carrying bulk liquids.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tanker (ship)” is ship designed to transport liquids or gases in bulk. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tanker, ship and designed, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14970. The first chronological checks are 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tanker (ship)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.