Size and safety set tanker trends

To chart the history of oil tankers is to put a mirror to more than a century of technical evolution, disaster, politics and regulation. Ships able to carry oil were first developed in the 1860s but it was the 1870s when designers developed what many recognise as the first proper oil tanker, Zoroaster, which was delivered in 1878 and carried 245 tonnes of kerosene for Branobel, which was founded by Ludvig and Robert Nobel.