Product Tanker vs Crude Tanker: Which Is Better for Your Career
Both vessel types carry oil. The choice between them affects daily work, career development potential and long-term earnings in ways that are worth thinking through before committing to a direction.
What Each Does
Crude tankers carry unrefined oil from production terminals to refineries. One cargo grade, dedicated loading and discharge terminals, operations that are large in scale and relatively straightforward in procedure.
Product tankers carry refined petroleum products. Diesel, jet fuel, gasoline, naphtha. Usually one grade at a time but sometimes multiple grades in separate tanks. Cargo cleaning between grades is required when changing products.
Operational Complexity
Product tankers offer more operational variety. Different cargo grades, cleaning requirements between grades, interaction with multiple terminals in different ports. This builds cargo knowledge faster than repeating the same crude loading and discharge cycle.
Crude tanker operations are not simple, particularly at VLCC scale where the magnitude of every operation is amplified. But the day-to-day cargo work is more repetitive than product tanker operations.
Port Variety
Crude tankers operate on a limited circuit. Major crude loading terminals are not numerous. Discharge is at refineries. The same ports repeatedly.
Product tankers have a wider port range. Distribution terminals for refined products exist in most major coastal cities. Officers on product tankers over a few years of service tend to have visited more ports than equivalent crude tanker officers.
Career Implications
Product tanker experience transfers more naturally to chemical tankers than crude tanker experience does. Chemical tanker operators actively recruit from the product tanker pool. The cargo handling skills and attention to detail developed on product tankers are directly applicable.
LNG operators also value complex cargo operation experience, which product tankers provide more of than crude tankers.
For officers thinking several moves ahead, product tanker experience tends to offer more branching options than crude tanker experience.
Pay
Chief Officer on a Suezmax crude tanker with major operator: $9,000 to $13,000 per month. Chief Officer on a medium range product tanker: $8,000 to $12,000 per month.
The difference is not large at equivalent ranks on comparable operators. VLCC pays more than medium range product at senior levels.
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