Empty Vessel Transfer

Transferring empty vessels consists of physically moving an empty tank or VBT from one internal facility to another. You can only use this operation within a company, but not to move the vessel to a third-party location.

When you create an empty vessel transfer, you must specify either a VBT or a tank as the From vessel. These vessels must be empty. You cannot use unknown vessels. The system does not create bill of lading vessels during an empty vessel transfer. If the From vessel is a tank, the system verifies whether the tank is defined as moveable in the Tank Master table (F31B08). If that is not the case, you cannot perform an empty vessel transfer using the tank.

When you create an empty vessel transfer, you specify a new location and a receiving facility for the empty vessel. If the From Vessel is a tank and this tank does not exist in the receiving facility, the system creates a new record in the F31B08 table for the tank and facility at a status of N (not in branch). The status of the tank in the shipping facility remains at A (active). When you move the operation to a Closed status, the system changes the status of the tank in the shipping facility to N and the status of the tank in the receiving facility to A. As long as tanks are at status N (not in branch), you cannot use them in another operation. You must close the transfer operation first to be able to use the empty tank in another operation.

For transfers of empty VBTs, you must create a new VBT. You add barrels to the VBT by accessing the VBT Movement Details program (P31B66). You can only use barrels with a volume status of Empty. If you move the transfer operation to a Closed status, the system changes the facility on the barrel master record from the shipping to the receiving facility. You can update locations and racks for the barrels. Once you close the operation, you can associate the barrels with a different VBT.

When you transfer an empty tank or VBT between blend facilities, the system copies the vessel's attributes and style from the shipping to the receiving facility.

You can print a list of the empty vessels that you transfer on the Operation Print report (R31B65A01). The report displays the empty barrels and calculates their total number for the After lots of the operations with empty barrels. The system also calculates the number of full barrels on each After lot.