The shell tanker Auricula was the first motor ship to be operated with heavy oil .
history
The oil tanker , completed in 1946 at the Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. shipyard under construction number 671, is considered the world's first motor ship to be operated with heavy fuel oil. Its owner was the London tanker shipping company Shell. As early as 1938, attempts were made under the direction of John Lamb, the head of technical inspection at Royal Dutch Shell , to operate diesel engines with heavy heating oil. This was previously only used to fire boilers.
After the end of the Second World War , the motor tanker Auricula was selected for trial operation with heavy fuel oil. For this purpose, it was equipped with an adapted injection system and oil separators , among other things . After successfully completing test drives, the ship left Great Britain on August 17, 1946 for its first voyage to Curaçao . The successful operation led to further attempts, for example the trial operation of the Helicina tanker with the particularly heavy bitumen .
After years of operation without any major disruptions, the shipping company sold the ship in 1955. As Don Demetrio , it was converted into an ore ship in 1956 . After further changes of ownership and renaming, the ship finally reached Kaohsiung on March 23, 1969 , where it was canceled.
