The company operates 12 very large crude carriers, able to hold 2 million barrels, and 10 ships half that size, which could be used as platforms for oil production or as storage ships, Chief Executive Oscar Spieler of the company?s operations unit in Oslo said in an interview yesterday.

?We will probably be involved. We see we can achieve attractive returns,? Spieler said. ?We have a great deal of in-house competencies in this field.?

The United Nations? International Maritime Organisation, or IMO, in December 2003 sped up plans to phase out oil carriers with one-layered hulls, which are deemed less safe than double-hulled tankers. The target is to remove most single-hulled tankers from 2010, and all within the five following years.

IMO on April 1 barred single-hull tankers, which have one layer of steel separating their cargo tanks from the sea, from carrying fuel oil. The only major trade where single-hull tankers are still able to haul fuel oil is between the US and the Caribbean. That?s because the US has its own rules on single-hull ships that don?t include a separate fuel-oil ban.

The phase-out regulations do not apply to single-hull tankers that are removed from service to act as so-called floating production, storage and offloading vessels, or FPSOs, or floating storage and offloading vessels, known as FSOs.

Frontline has no immediate plans to convert tankers, and aims to operate the single-hulled vessels transporting crude oil for as long as possible, Spieler said.