Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have had to transcend their regular functions in order to play a vital role in the international socioeconomic and environmental recovery.

There is perhaps no better example of this than companies in the oil and gas industry, where falling demand, that led to excess oil supply, posed a significant international threat if a solution could not be reached on where to store unused oil during the crisis.

The hazard posed by the excess supply could have compounded the environmental, biological and economic strain caused by coronavirus by several orders of magnitude.

Fortunately, innovative and agile companies in the sector did find solutions.

Among them has been the oil tanker industry, which has placed an enormous load on its back to store excess oil for the sole purpose of sheltering overburdened on shore storehouses.

Over the past few months, oil tanker fleets all over the world have carried record loads of crude oil for the purpose of relieving capacity from their production partners, who, in light of the near total cessation of global air travel, coupled with strict lockdown measures are facing the sharpest fall in demand in recent history.

According to the owner of one such fleet - businessman and philanthropist Alshair Fiyaz- "The shipping tanking industry has been an essential backbone in the world's environmental protection during the COVID-19 crisis. If we didn’t have the ability to store oil on tankers, on-shore storehouses would be dealing with overflows and the environmental exposure would be devastating."

Thanks to shipping fleets such as those of Mr. Fiyaz, the oil industry has been able to take the strain off of world health, economic and social organizations at a time when they’re fighting the biggest global challenge in a generation.

Coronavirus