Avondale Shipyards, Inc., a unit of Ogden Corporation, has received a $300-million contract from Exxon Company U.S.A. of Houston for construction of three 43,000-dwt products carriers. The ships will be powered by fuel-efficient, five-cylinder diesels of Sulzer design, to be manufactured in Japan under license and shipped to Avondale for final assembly. The 17,000-bhp, slow-speed engines will be capable of operating on heavy fuel oil.
Cargo pumping will be accomplished through vertical deepwell motor-driven centrifugal cargo pumps with nitrogen stripper system with suction from a pump in the double bottom to maximize removal of cargo.
A complete cargo control room including remote operation of cargo and ballast pumps, valve actuation, inert gas systems and remote tank gauging display and alarms is provided. The ships incorporate the latest U.S. Coast Guard pollution prevention requirements, complete double bottoms, protectively located segregated ballast, inert gas system, improved steering and collision avoidance radar systems.
Exxon will use the new ships to transport lube oil, solvents, chemicals, and other products from its Gulf Coast refineries to distribution terminals on the U.S. East Coast.
Avondale already has a comfortable backlog of orders; construction of the Exxon ships will begin in 1982, with deliveries scheduled from October 1983 to April 1984.