First Oil Supertanker Launched
The Universe Apollo, the first supertanker, was launched in Japan, transforming global oil transport
March 01, 1959
The Age of the Giants
The supertanker era began in the late 1950s and accelerated dramatically through the 1960s and 1970s as global oil demand surged and shipping companies competed to build ever-larger vessels. A supertanker is typically defined as a very large crude carrier (VLCC) of over 200,000 deadweight tonnes. The closure of the Suez Canal from 1967 to 1975 (due to the Arab-Israeli War) was a major driver — ships too large to use the canal but able to sail around Africa became economically attractive. The era peaked with the construction of ultra-large crude carriers (ULCCs) in the mid-1970s, the largest moving objects ever built by human beings.
The Largest Ships Ever Built
The Seawise Giant, launched in 1979 and later known by several names, was the largest ship ever built — stretching 458 meters (1,503 feet) in length, longer than the Empire State Building is tall. These ships were so large they could not enter most ports and had to offload oil to smaller vessels at sea. They required several miles to stop and could not navigate the English Channel. Their sheer scale changed the economics of oil transport, allowing massive quantities of crude to be moved cheaply across oceans. The global dependence on Middle Eastern oil made these vessels critical infrastructure for the entire world economy.
Risk and Legacy
Supertankers brought enormous environmental risk. Disasters like the Amoco Cadiz (1978) and Exxon Valdez (1989) demonstrated the catastrophic consequences of supertanker spills on coastlines and marine ecosystems. These disasters drove major changes in tanker design — double hulls became mandatory — and in international maritime law. The ultra-large tankers of the 1970s peak were never repeated; economic changes, the reopening of Suez, and new port infrastructure shifted the calculus. But the supertanker era fundamentally shaped how the world accesses oil and established the template for modern global supply chains built around massive oceangoing vessels.