Batillus
The Batillus oil tanker at the end of its construction in Saint-Nazaire, being refueled by the Port-Vendres
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| History | |
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| Name: | Batillus |
| Owner: | Societe Maritime Shell, France |
| Port of registry: |
 Fos-sur-Mer
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| Builder: | |
| Yard number: | V 25 |
| Laid down: | May 18, 1975 |
| Launched: | June 25, 1976 |
| Completed: | 1976 |
| In service: | 1976 |
| Out of service: | 1983 |
| Identification: |
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| Fate: | Scrapped in Kaohsiung, Taiwan 1985 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Batillus, ULCC |
| Tonnage: | |
| Displacement: | 663,000 t |
| Length: | 414.22 m (1,359 ft 0 in) |
| Beam: | 63.01 m (206 ft 9 in) |
| Draft: | 28.50 m (93 ft 6 in) |
| Installed power: | 64,800 Hp |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 16 knots (30 km/h) |
| Notes: | |
Batillus was a supertanker, built in 1976 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire for the French branch of Shell Oil. The first vessel of homonymous Batillus class supertankers. Batillus, together with her sister ships Bellamya, Pierre Guillaumat and Prairial, was one of the biggest ships in the world, surpassed in size only by Seawise Giant (later Jahre Viking, Happy Giant and Knock Nevis) built in 1976, and extended in 1981, although the four ships of the Batillus class had a larger gross tonnage.
The contract to build the Batillus class supertankers was signed on April 6, 1971, and the first sheet metal was cut in January 1975. Meanwhile, the oil shock caused by the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, resulted in higher oil prices and reduction of imports from industrialized countries. The cancellation of the order had been seriously considered, but Shell concluded that it was better to continue, mostly to not put the shipyard in very difficult position with withdrawal of such a huge, already initiated project, (the work commitments were already well advanced, with extremely heavy cancellation charges) hoping also on better times in future.
The ship was completed and put in service in 1976, simultaneously with new, purposely built, oil terminal Antifer, near Le Havre, one of very few ports in the world capable of accommodating Batillus class tankers. Her first captain was Roger Priser. She made a total of 25 voyages between the Persian Gulf and northern Europe, and one-off sail between the Persian Gulf and Curaçao in June-July 1977, a total of 20 dockings to Antifer. In the Gulf, oil terminals that served were Mina al Fahal (Oman), Halul island (Qatar), Kharg Island (Iran), Ras Tanura, Ras al-Ju'aymah (Saudi Arabia), Mina Al-Ahmadi and Sea Island (Kuwait). In Europe, the only other port of call was Europoort, Rotterdam, but there were also transloadings at sea to smaller units in England and Irish Sea.
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