Shuttle tanker Polytrader named and launched

By Gunleiv Hadland, Norwegian Petroleum Museum

Polytrader was a motor tanker specially tailored to take aboard oil from the loading buoys on Statfjord. Its owner, the Einar Rasmussen shipping company, secured the first two charters awarded by Statoil as operator for KS Statfjord Transport AS & Co.

— Statfjord A loading system. Polytrader loading oil. Photo: Leif Berge/Equinor

These contracts commenced in November 1978. Until it started loading on Statfjord in December 1979, Polytrader was partly laid up and partly engaged in conventional crude oil traffic. This 126 000-deadweight-tonne vessel was the first of two ordered by Einar Rasmussen and chartered to the Statfjord group for five years.

The specifications established by Statfjord Transport required that the ship, for safety reasons, should have segregated ballast tanks. Two bow thrusters and a small bridge in the bows made it easier to manoeuvre the tanker up to the loading buoy, while connecting the loading hose and the cargo transfer operation was controlled from the bows. Pusnes in Arendal was selected to develop the loading system, which was based on connecting the hose from the buoy over the bows of the tanker.

Personnel coordinator Marit Hielm Falck at Statoil was the lady sponsor when Polytrader was named at Sweden’s Uddevallavarvet. She had previously been secretary to Statoil chief executive Arve Johnsen, and the first person he recruited to the company. Sister ship Polytraveller, delivered in 1979, was also built at Uddevallavarvet.

To learn more, see the article: The loading buoys on Statfjord.

Sources
Lindøe, J., & Stavanger sjøfartsmuseum. (2009). From sea to shore : The shuttle tanker story. Stavanger: Wigestrand ; Stavanger sjøfartsmuseum: 14-15, 20, 31 and 87.
Farsunds Avis, 6 February 1978. “Spesialskip til Statfjord”.