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Something that blew my mind was learning that (depending on oil prices of course), a container ship can burn through up to a quarter million dollars worth of fu

by kyllo 7y ago

Something that blew my mind was learning that (depending on oil prices of course), a container ship can burn through up to a quarter million dollars worth of fuel on a single transpacific voyage.

novok 7y ago
That's really cheap fuel cost for shipping a container ship's worth of iphones.
overcast 7y ago
That sounds like a rounding error in comparison to the value of cargo being hauled. I would have expected significantly more.
Tsubasachan 7y ago
Keep in mind that the latest generation of cargo ships can carry 20000 containers.
rmah 7y ago
Let's run the numbers... a typical container cargo ship might be say 20,000 TEU and use apx 300 tons of fuel per day. With trans-pacific voyage of 12,000km at 20 o 24 knots (apx 40kph), we're looking at voyage times of 12.5 days -- let's add a bit of slop and say 15 days. This totals to 300 * 15 = 4500 tons of fuel, or @ $550/ton => $2,475,000k for fuel costs. So more like $2.5mil per voyage (not $250k). 20,000 TEU's (or apx 10,000 "large" containers as hauled by a truck or train car). At apx 15 tons per container, that's 150,000 tons of cargo. So cargo ships use apx 30kg of fuel per ton of cargo (or $16.50 per ton of cargo). So how much fuel used is to move 1kg of cargo across the Pacific ocean (12,000 km) by ship? It works out to be about 30cc (1 fluid ounces or 2 tablespoons) or $0.0165 (or €0.015) of fuel to transport 1 kg of cargo across the pacific. An iphone (box and all) weighs just 200g, so it would cost 1/3rd of a penny of fuel to move across the pacific by ship (about a teaspoon). That seems pretty damn efficient to me. I suspect that many people don't realize just how freaking massive modern cargo ships are. To put it into perspective, they are often bigger than the largest modern aircraft carriers and multiple times larger than WW2 era aircraft carriers/battleships.
- kyllo 7y ago
  Ah you're right, I guess I was thinking of Transatlantic, which is a shorter voyage with smaller vessels.

by kyllo 7y ago

Something that blew my mind was learning that (depending on oil prices of course), a container ship can burn through up to a quarter million dollars worth of fuel on a single transpacific voyage.

novok 7y ago

That's really cheap fuel cost for shipping a container ship's worth of iphones.

overcast 7y ago

That sounds like a rounding error in comparison to the value of cargo being hauled. I would have expected significantly more.

Tsubasachan 7y ago

Keep in mind that the latest generation of cargo ships can carry 20000 containers.

rmah 7y ago

Let's run the numbers... a typical container cargo ship might be say 20,000 TEU and use apx 300 tons of fuel per day. With trans-pacific voyage of 12,000km at 20 o 24 knots (apx 40kph), we're looking at voyage times of 12.5 days -- let's add a bit of slop and say 15 days. This totals to 300 * 15 = 4500 tons of fuel, or @ $550/ton => $2,475,000k for fuel costs. So more like $2.5mil per voyage (not $250k). 20,000 TEU's (or apx 10,000 "large" containers as hauled by a truck or train car). At apx 15 tons per container, that's 150,000 tons of cargo. So cargo ships use apx 30kg of fuel per ton of cargo (or $16.50 per ton of cargo). So how much fuel used is to move 1kg of cargo across the Pacific ocean (12,000 km) by ship? It works out to be about 30cc (1 fluid ounces or 2 tablespoons) or $0.0165 (or €0.015) of fuel to transport 1 kg of cargo across the pacific. An iphone (box and all) weighs just 200g, so it would cost 1/3rd of a penny of fuel to move across the pacific by ship (about a teaspoon). That seems pretty damn efficient to me. I suspect that many people don't realize just how freaking massive modern cargo ships are. To put it into perspective, they are often bigger than the largest modern aircraft carriers and multiple times larger than WW2 era aircraft carriers/battleships.

kyllo 7y ago
Ah you're right, I guess I was thinking of Transatlantic, which is a shorter voyage with smaller vessels.