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Malaccamax

Largest ships that can transit the Strait of Malacca

Field	Value
section1	{{Infobox ship/image
image	China’s Critical Sea Lines of Communication.png
image_caption	Malaccamax is defined by the Strait of Malacca, Malaccamax tankers can carry oil from the Persian Gulf to China.
section2	{{Infobox ship/characteristics
tonnage
length	333 m
beam	60 m
draft	20.5 m

Malaccamax is a naval architecture term for the largest tonnage of ship capable of fitting through the 25 m Strait of Malacca. Bulk carriers and supertankers have been built to this tonnage, and the term is chosen for very large crude carriers (VLCC). They can transport oil from Arabia to China. A typical Malaccamax tanker can have a maximum length of 333 m, beam of 60 m, draught of 20.5 m, and tonnage of 300,000 DWT.

Similar terms Panamax, Suezmax and Seawaymax are used for the largest ships capable of fitting through the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal and Saint Lawrence Seaway, respectively.

Problems

Comparison of Malaccamax with other ship sizes

Some Chinamax and most Capesize and very large crude carriers cannot pass this strait. Ships such as Suezmax and Neopanamax can pass. Any post-Malaccamax ship would need to use even longer alternate routes because traditional seaways such as the Sunda Strait, between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra would become too shallow for large ships. Other routes would therefore be required:

Lombok Strait (250 m), Dewakang Sill (680 m), Makassar Strait, then either east past Mindanao to the Philippine Sea or north through Sibutu Passage and Mindoro Strait
Ombai Strait, Banda Sea, Lifamatola Strait (1940 m) between the Sula Islands and Obi Islands, and Molucca Sea
around Australia

Artificially excavated new routes might also be a possibility:

deepening the Strait of Malacca, specifically at its minimum depth in the Singapore Strait,
the proposed Kra Canal, which however would take much more excavation.

References

(September 2002). "Malacca-max Oil Tanker Delivered". [[NKK Corporation]].
"Development of Malaccamax Very Large Crude-oil Carriers".
[http://fieldmuseum.org/explore/pleistocene-sea-level-maps Pleistocene Sea Level Maps: Southeast Asia and Sundaland]
"Deep topographic barriers within the Indonesian seas".
(2001). "Current measurements in the Maluku Sea". Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

ship-types strait-of-malacca ship-measurements

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