ASPHALT COMMANDER - Hot-Mix Magazine

ASPHALT COMMANDER
FACTS ABOUT THE ASPHALT COMMANDER
Overall length........................................................669 ft. (204 m)
Beam or width........................................................84 ft. (25.6 m)
Draft (extent of hull below waterline)........................36 ft. (11 m)
Range.........................................................24,300 nm or 62 days
Liquid AC capacity........................195,000 bbls or 8,000,000 gal.
Heating capacity...................................................45,000,000 Btu
Year originally built...............................................................1984
Year re-outfitted...................................................................1996
HOT-MIX MAGAZINE 6 VOLUME 1, NUMBER 5

A CARGO OF LIQUID AC
The cargo compartments of this ship
hold 195,000 barrels of liquid AC—enough to supply
the liquid-AC needs of a typical HMA producer
for as much as 14 years
It is properly named: As the
Asphalt Commander, this ship
is without question the largest
carrier of liquid asphalt cement
(liquid AC) in the world. It can
carry almost 200,000 barrels of
liquid AC from one port to another
across the high seas. That is
about 8 million gallons of roadbuilding
material. And no matter
how long the voyage, when it
arrives at its destination, it will be
able to quickly and efficiently discharge
its cargo because the
temperature of the liquid AC will
be at a workable level—more than
270°F (132°C).
This unique vessel has become
the premiere carrier for Sargeant
Marine, Inc., a Florida-based
company that specializes in the
sale and transportation of asphalt.
With a total of three product
tankers currently in operation,
Sargeant Marine is unquestionably
the world’s leading independent
importer/exporter of asphalt.
This liquid-AC transport
is two football fields long
The Asphalt Commander is big by
almost any standards. It is 669 ft.
(204 m) long. It has an 84 ft. (25.6
m) beam or width. Deeply laden,
it draws 36 ft. (11 m) of water.
“The usual crew is between 18
and 22 people,” said Capt. Weston
L. Stow, operations manager for
Sargeant Marine and the person
who was in charge of overseeing
the refitting of the ship. “That’s
not many people for a ship that is
more than two football fields
long. But the Asphalt Commander
is a totally modern ship and the
crew requirements are not as
great as older ships. The engine
room, for example, is completely
automated. And the bridge is
equipped with what is truly stateof-the-art
electronics.”
Stow said that there are three
other major asphalt ships in the
world beside the Asphalt
Commander. Two of them are
operated by Sargeant Marine.
“But the Asphalt Commander is
the largest in the world. And it is
the only one that sails under the
U.S. flag and has a U.S. crew.
We’re proud of those facts. We
have a manning agreement with
the International Organization of
Master Mates and Pilots and they
provide all crew members. We’re
pretty proud of that, too.”
The Asphalt Commander is powered
by two diesel engines that
produce a total of 14,200 hp. It
carries enough fuel to provide a
range of 24,000 nautical miles,
which is equal to once around the
On the deck of the Asphalt Commander, you can see a small portion of the
header and piping that is used to circulate hot-oil throughout the ship to the
various liquid-AC cargo containers. There is a total of more than 22 miles of
piping used on the ship, including the coils inside the cargo containers.
world. It can steam for 62 days
without refueling, although a typical
voyage is somewhat shorter.
“We could go almost any place in
the world with this ship,” said
Stow. “But our primary trade will
probably be between Venezuela
or the Caribbean and the East
Coast of the United States. A typical
voyage would be between
3,000 and 4,000 nautical miles
(5 500 and 7 400 km). You can figure
ten days steaming time and
eight days loading and discharge.
The ship’s second voyage
was one for the record books
“Our first voyage took us from
Curaçao—an island in the
Caribbean where a refinery is
located—to Charleston, South
Carolina. The second trip was
from Amuay Bay, Venezuela to
Port Everglades, Florida. When
the ship reached port, the average
cargo temperature was 300° F
(159° C) and we were able to discharge
the liquid AC at a higher
rate than any other asphalt ship
had ever done.
”But the real record-setting
performance had to do with total
cargo. On just its second voyage,
the Asphalt Commander lifted the
largest asphalt cargo ever lifted
by a ship: 195,000 barrels!”
According to Stow, they were
able to discharge the liquid AC
quickly because of the complex
and efficient heating system they
had installed on the ship during
its conversion and refitting early
this year. Sargeant Marine worked
with Heatec of Chattanooga,
Tennessee to design and manufacture
hot-oil heaters that would
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HOT-MIX MAGAZINE 7 VOLUME 1, NUMBER 5

(Continued from Page 7)
keep 8 million gallons of liquid
AC at a temperature that was uniformly
manageable. This was not
Sargeant Marine’s first time to be
associated with Heatec.
“We’ve done business with Heatec
for years,” said Stow. “We have
purchased more than 100 liquid-
AC shipping containers from
Heatec and our association has
always been very satisfactory.
There’s a lot of mutual trust there.
We hold them in very high regard.
“But we still shopped this project
around. We met with three different
suppliers and asked all of
them to put packages together
and give us bids. And after some
more pretty intense meetings, we
selected Heatec to do the job.”
How Heatec designed
the thermal-liquid system:
The “job” was more complex
than it might appear on the surface.
There were 14 different containers
built into the cargo hold of
the ship. Each had to be outfitted
with serpentine heating coils at
two levels: high and low. Three
hot-oil heaters had to be installed
on the deck of the ship. Pumps
and control valves had to be
strategically placed to provide an
even supply of hot oil to the coils.
According to Buddy Ledford, the
director of engineering for Heatec,
his company was probably the
only one in the country that could
handle the total job. “We are able
to do something that is pretty
unusual in our industry. We can
provide all of the heating coils, as
well as the heating source. A lot
of companies that make thermalfluid
heaters do not make heating
coils—and those that make coils
do not typically make heaters. We
can handle it all: heaters and
coils. On this job, it was definitely
to the customer’s advantage to
have one company that was
capable of providing both types
of components.”
Ledford said that the three Heatec
heaters were installed on the main
deck of the ship. The large structure
that houses the heaters is
clearly visible in aerial photos on
the aft part of the ship, just behind
the stack and the bridge.
“Each of the heaters is rated at 15
million Btu,” said Ledford. “Each
unit has two circulating pumps,
one of which is a standby in case
the other fails. All three of the
heaters feed into a common
header that goes from one end of
the ship to the other. There is a
minimum bypass valve located in
the bow of the ship. Regardless
of how many of the 14 cargo
compartments are being heated,
if they have a heater turned on,
there is a flow measurement taken
for that heater. That reading
goes into a summing controller
which controls a minimum
bypass valve—and this assures
that each heater maintains an
absolute minimum flow rate. It’s
a pretty complex system—but
the heating requirements on this
job were also pretty complex.”
According to Ledford, the system
requires a total of 45,000 gal.
(170 000 L) of heating oil. “That
includes the oil required in the
heater, the headers, and all of the
heating coils. Each heater has a
minimum flow rate of about 600
gpm (2 300 Lpm). When all three
pumps are working, the flow rate
is about 2,100 gpm (8 000 Lpm).”
A total of 22 miles
of serpentine heating coils
Ledford said that the heating system
uses about 22 miles of the
serpentine heating coils in the 14
separate cargo compartments.
“We fabricated all of the coils,”
said Ledford, “and the shipyard
did the actual installation. Imagine:
22 miles of heating coils.”
The actual heating process itself
is fairly complicated. In a typical
cargo compartment or tank, there
are two levels of heating coils:
one at the bottom of the tank and
another about 5 ft. (1.5 m) higher.
The low coils do not have a very
high heating capacity because
In drydock during its conversion and refitting, the Asphalt Commander towered
over the workers. In this photo, the ship is far in the background (notice
the size of the forklift by the bow) behind Heatec employees Ron Henry (left)
and Gary Yearwood (right) who were installing the on-board heaters.
they are only intended to replace
whatever heat loss there is
between the ship’s hull and the
water. The higher sets of coils do
most of the actual work of heating
the liquid AC in the tanks.
Once the liquid AC at the bottom
of the compartment gets hot
enough, it will move up toward
the surface. Eventually, the liquid
AC will actually roll over and start
a circulating motion that keeps
the contents of the compartment
at an even temperature.
The actual work of refitting the
ship took a little more than seven
months, although the entire project
took about a year as far as
Sargeant Marine was concerned.
“We spent a fair amount of time
finding the ship and purchasing
it,” said Stow. “It was in the
Maritime Administration reserve
fleet, excess to the needs of the
government. It was a product
tanker—originally named the
Falcon Champion—and it was a
resupply vessel for U.S. Navy
tankers. We bought the ship and
towed it to Mobile, Alabama for
conversion and refitting.”
And how did things go after the
ship was refitted and renamed
the Asphalt Commander?
“We had the normal gremlins
you’d expect on the first voyage,”
said Stow. “But the second voyage
was really outstanding! Everyone
who has dealt with the Asphalt
Commander so far has been very
impressed. And that includes
everyone in our company.
“If you think I’m proud of this
ship, you’re right!” ▼▲▼
FOR MORE
INFORMATION
about Heatec
vertical or horizontal
storage tanks and heaters—
for ocean-going vessels or
conventional HMA operations
—call and ask to speak with
Gail McKeehan:
423-821-5200
(FAX: 423-821-7673)
HOT-MIX MAGAZINE 8 VOLUME 1, NUMBER 5