Maritime students visit Seychelles Paradise tanker |02 April 2011
This week, this newest vessel in the Seychelles Petroleum Company’s (Sepec) fleet also hosted cohorts of school children from other schools.
But Seychelles Nation was particularly interested in the visit by the students of the maritime college, since some of them will probably pursue a career on Sepec tankers.
They were welcomed by the head of the shipping department, Pierre Prosper, who is in charge of the running of the Seychelles Paradise and five other Sepec tankers.
The Seychelles Paradise has a 15-Seychellois crew under the command of Captain Philip Andre.
Altogether Sepec tankers employ over 120 Seychellois, many already in top positions, while the rest are cadets.
The maritime school students were shown around the bridge by chief officer Richard Ernesta. They were shown how fuel transfers were activated by a valva from the bridge.
The vessel normally supplies 700,000 litres (650 tonnes) to Praslin in one trip. Usually supply depends on storage capacity at the Praslin depots at Baie Ste Anne.
The Seychelles Paradise also re-fuels ships outside the harbour when Port Victoria is full.
It also services passing ships, including warships, in ship-to-ship operations. These involve
The students also visited the engine room and learned that the tanker carries some water tankers to cool the engines.
The Sepec tanker fleet, which consist of five tankers, constitute a pillar of the national economy as they range far and wide across the world’s oceans.
The largest are the Seychelles Patriot and Seychelles Prelude, both of 45,000-ton capacity.
The Seychelles Pioneer and Seychelles Progress are of 35,700-ton capacity, while the Seychelles Pride, which is also the first tanker in the fleet, is 32,000 tonnes.
Mr Prosper said though the oil freight demand had dropped because of the world economic recession, it is now picking up.
He noted that the downside presently is the rising oil prices, which also mean high bunker costs to run the vessels.