Time’s reporter is aboard the brand-new Esso of The Netherlands tanker Europoort, a very large crude carrier. The Europoort has many luxuries for the crewman.

Since the Torrey Canyon disaster in 1967, the world’s ever bigger oil tankers have drawn worse and worse publicity. Viewers with alarm see them as oil-leaking time bombs that defile the seas with toxic black goo. Tankermen have a different perspective. Sailing calmly through gales of criticism, they supply the…

At Rotterdam’s Europoort, with there massive oil refineries, deepened the port’s sea channel to accommodate larger tankers.

THE NETHERLANDS

Although Middle East oil production is near its prewar level, the refineries of Western Europe will continue to feel the pinch for some time to come. Reason: until the Suez Canal is un plugged, oil tankers must take a two-week detour around the Cape of Good Hope. At…

Europe’s biggest seaport Rotterdam has launched a campaign to pass New York as the world’s biggest port and are busily building a $250 million addition, called Europoort.

The Dutch port of Rotterdam is already Europe’s biggest seaport, and the prosperity of the Common Market pours through it in a growing current of trade. Strategically set astride the Rhine-Maas waterway, which leads to the heart of industrial Europe, Rotterdam handles more cargo than Antwerp, Bremen and Hamburg put…