# Information needed on fueling ships - can you help?



## lucy8584 (Sep 8, 2010)

Hi

I'm a literature student, currently writing a novel set in Vietnam in the early 1980s. I would like to write a scene in which a character steals fuel from a ship docked in a harbour or from a harbour-side supply or obtains a largish quantity of fuel in some similarly illegal way. Could anyone advise me if it would it be possible to syphon fuel from a tanker into a smaller vessel? If so, how would this be done? Is there a better way to steal fuel than I have thought of?

I’m a complete shipping novice and I'm really struggling to find information. Unsurprising, if you Google 'how to steal fuel', you come up pretty blank!

Please can anyone help me? I would be extremely grateful. Thank you.


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## Gulpers (Sep 8, 2005)

*Welcome*

lucy8584,

On behalf of the Moderating Team, a warm welcome to SN from the Isle of Anglesey.
Join in our discussions and I am sure you will get many hours of pleasure from your membership. (Thumb)


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## Billieboy (May 18, 2009)

Welcome aboard Lucy, from the flat bit of Europe.

'Nam in the '80s wasn't all that dangerous for fueling ships or tankers, in the late sixties and early seventies, tankers delivering fuel to the US forces often had a, "difficult time", when discharging in the Mekong Delta or at Da Nang.


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## JoK (Nov 12, 2006)

bribe the chief officer


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## Macphail (Oct 27, 2008)

Lucy.

Pinching fuel is common practice, by the fuel supplier. Short changing on the total amount, spicking, it with water, or some other dodgy substances.

For your novel.

I have experienced whilst bunkering gas oil in third world countries, there was a tap off pipe after the flow meter, fuel supposed to be going to the ship was being decanted into 50 litre drums.
This was also the case, when discharging petrol in Constanza , they had the tap at the discharge manifold on the jetty with the cars queuing to be filled up. The agent came into the bar reeking of petrol and bought everybody a drink.

John


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

To aswere your question ; yes it would be possible to syphon from a full tank through the tanks hatch combing . You would need say a 4inch (100 mm ) hose run from the tank to your vessel ; the problem would be to establish the syphon flow . This would be most easily done using some sort of va***e pump or eductor to suck out the air from the hose until the flow begins .

Seems to me that in Nam it would be almost impossible to rig up such a rig which would be easily seen and make a lot of noise until the flow is esablished .

A better way may be to hook up your hose to the ships engine room bunkering station ; go down the engine room ; hit the engineer on the head with a wrench and then pump out the engine room fuel tanks ( it would need an engineer to do this ; to find his way around the engine room and figure out the tanks pipe lines etc )

In reality it would not work as the tankers had armed guards on deck who threw precussion grenades over the ships side at irregular intervals to ward off enemy divers .

In retrospect Jok is right ; find a corrupt crew and bribe them . Not a British Ship however .

Cheers Derek


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## Macphail (Oct 27, 2008)

Lucy.

Pinching fuel is common practice, by the fuel supplier. Short changing on the total amount, spicking, it with water, or some other dodgy substances.

For your novel.

I have experienced whilst bunkering gas oil in third world countries, there was a tap off pipe after the flow meter, fuel supposed to be going to the ship was being decanted into 50 litre drums.
This was also the case when discharging petrol in Constanza , they had the tap at the discharge manifold on the jetty with the cars queuing to be filled up. The agent came into the bar reeking of petrol and bought everybody a drink.

John.


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## Scurdie (Aug 6, 2009)

Aren't the Nigerians quite good at drilling holes in petrol pipelines?! A pretty dangerous thing to do, of course.
Round where I live, I regret to say that rural residents have had to padlock their domestic heating fuel tanks to stop thieves.


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## billyboy (Jul 6, 2005)

A warm welcome aboard from the Philippines. Please enjoy all this great site has to offer


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## lucy8584 (Sep 8, 2010)

Hi All. Thanks for the info. It's super helpful. I think I'm certainly going to have to grease some officials...


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## lucy8584 (Sep 8, 2010)

Drilling a hole is certainly my backup plan - but would like to have some dramatic 'out in the water' action if possible!
Thanks for your help.


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## uisdean mor (Sep 4, 2008)

No reall way to get at fuel once it is loaded. Safety issues, practical fuel separation (different grades and quality) mean a system of valves and tanks and this would need to be known to the "thief"as well as access to a pump.
Salvage crews use suction pumps with flexible hoses and gain access via vent pipes etc tank lids or holes in the tank but the pumps are large and noisy - not a real option for a sneak thief but may be an option for a wreck or unattended vessel.
Rgds 
Uisdean


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## Gareth Jones (Jul 13, 2007)

Lucy you need to also be aware that ships consume diesel oil of various grades and not petrol.


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## captain61 (Aug 14, 2009)

Welcome aboard this great site Lucy

Stephen


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## Duncan112 (Dec 28, 2006)

If you had a corrupt engineer then you could shut in the valves to the tanks and connect a hose to the unused side of the manifold and pump the fuel in one side of the ship and out the other. Seen it happen accidentally on ships where the blank had not been fitted to the unused manifold side. Lovely mess, glad it wasn't me.


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## Dickyboy (May 18, 2009)

There would be sample cocks both aboard the vessel and ashore. These were used to draw off small samples into sample bottles, for analysis ashore. The cocks were a bit like taps, and were usually kept locked. More often on board the sample would be taken by lowering the bottle into the tank. The bottle would only hold about 250 ml.
PS, I'm talking oil tankers here.


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## Jan Hendrik (Feb 14, 2005)

Correct Gareth, I was just about to say the same.
For what purpose would anybody try and steal bunker fuel or cargo fuel from a tanker?
Such fuel, unless reworked, would not be suitable for your local Toyota.
Jan


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## surfaceblow (Jan 16, 2008)

To remove the bunkers from the ship it would take a bunch of people to get the barge tied up to the ship position the bunker hose. Man handle the hose to make the flange connection and line up the bunker valves to discharge. On several occasions I had to pump bunkers off a ship its a slow process using the fuel oil transfer pump. On one occasion we used several Air Pumps to strip the tanks. Again the whole crew knew it was going on due to the noise of the pump and the hoses all over the deck. It is more plausible to have the bunkers stolen from a idle ship with no crew onboard or just to take over a loaded bunker barge. At least the oil is already onboard the barge and less people to deal with.


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## Satanic Mechanic (Feb 23, 2009)

Lucy 

I love the sound of this(==D) I take it you are looking for a bit of realism here so to be honest we could maybe do with a few more details - can you give us the full scenario - what is the fuel being used for, how much fuel, what type of fuel, what sort of containers, equipment available etc.


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## lucy8584 (Sep 8, 2010)

Thanks for your help everyone. Really appreciate you taking the time to advise me.

Hi Mr Mechanic. Basically, this part of the novel is just a little sideline to the main plot - someone had to raise a large amount of money quickly. I thought that since blackouts were a major problem in Vietnam in the early 80s, diesel would have a high price. If it was stolen from a ship/shipyard, it could then be sold to use in private generators... make sense?!

I'm starting to realise that I really dont know enough about ships to be able to write about this with any conviction. The diesel will probably have to be tapped from a fuel pipe instead - this seems much simpler to understand for a novice like me.

PS - would need to be a large quanity of fuel, open to suggestions re. containers, equipment available would be quite basic (although i can invent a knowledgable accomplice if needs be).


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## surfaceblow (Jan 16, 2008)

It appears you be looking to borrow a loaded tanker truck for your adventure. Staking out the local tank farm should get you a truck with the correct grade of fuel and a route that the truck takes for its deliveries. A small tanker truck carries about 3500 gallons.


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## Satanic Mechanic (Feb 23, 2009)

Right - had a while to ponder this and here are a few thoughts.

a) Forget private generators - just sell the fuel to whoever needs it
b) large quantities are going to get noticed so lets go for small regular quantities, the bigger the quantity the more people are involved and fuel is always closely watched.
c) Large amount of money quickly: hmm - not fuel then, what you need is something small and valuable - given the area, gems (Burma?) or arms might be a better idea. Passports are always valuable!!!
d) however sticking with ships fuel - v. tricky to get off a ship without help so what you need is: A drunk engineer ashore during the day- agree to go halfers with him/ buy him a girl/ swap him something, a small boat to collect the fuel containers, say 25 litre cans, at night time during his watch.
Don't go alongside let them float downstream to you, expect about 100 - 200 litres. 

Price - better ask the engineers from that time on the site(Jester)

e) tank farms - not easy at all -heavily guarded
f) pipelines may be a solution - take a look at modern Nigeria they are known for this behaviour - to be fair it only becomes really apparent once the fire has started!!!!
Hope that helps a bit


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## Dickyboy (May 18, 2009)

Just a question to other members. I never went up to Vietnam. Were all oil imports into Vietnam controlled by the military? Or were there the usual trading methods in place there as well?


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## lucy8584 (Sep 8, 2010)

Dickyboy:
As I understand it, until 1986, the Vietnamese government controlled all trade - imports and exports - and restricted their own trade internationally, limiting themselves to a small number of other Communist countries like Russia. So I expect all oil imports would have been under military control, yes. After 86, they opened up trade much wider, so I wouldn't be sure, it may have changed.

SMechanic:
Thanks very much. Super helpful. The Nigerians are onto something. I'm going to run with the pipeline plan! MUCH simpler.


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## Nick Balls (Apr 5, 2008)

Access by either unbolting an air vent or using an ullage port . Have to be pumped. Probably using a small air powered diaphragm pump of the kind often carried on ships for tank cleaning.................lot of equipment to set up here best take Sananic's advice and simply bribe the engineer!


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## Dickyboy (May 18, 2009)

Lucy, I would go with your original plan. Much more interesting way of doing this sort of thing. Involving ships, refineries, tank farms etc. MUCH better than just knicking the stuff from a pipeline.
Have a good look around this site and you may well get a few ideas about how oil is treated, and make sure that you have the correct type or name of the oil that that your hero is knicking. No good knicking Feedstock if he wants it to run a car for example


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## Gulpers (Sep 8, 2005)

*Merged threads*

Since Lucy has asked the same question in her "Hello" thread and this one, I have merged the two threads since answers were being placed in both. (Thumb)


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## randcmackenzie (Aug 31, 2005)

Ask anyone who ever worked for or dealt with with Bakry Bunkering of Saudi Arabia.


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