A supertanker is a giant ship built to carry liquid — nearly always crude oil — across oceans. A tanker is any such ship; a supertanker is one of the truly huge ones, hundreds of metres long, so big it cannot enter most harbours and has to unload at a terminal out at sea, and so heavy it needs several kilometres to stop. Because of that last fact, the word has taken on a very common figurative use: people say a big organisation is 'like a supertanker' — it cannot turn quickly, and by the time you see the problem it is too late to steer away. You will meet that image in business writing and politics at least as often as you meet the actual ship in the news, where supertankers usually appear because one has run aground, spilled oil, or been seized.

超級油輪（巨型油輪）