Batillus

"That was probably due to the demand for tankers to have double hulls. Post 1992 - following the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 - it became obligatory - but there had been calls for this long before and the Exxon Valdez was just one in a long series of disasters."

Nothing to do with the requirements for double hull tankers or the requirements thereof.
Basically, these ships were hopelessly uneconomical and restricted to very few ports due to their size and especially loaded draft, making them difficult to trade.
The Prairial only lastest as long as it did because it spent most of its life as a floating storage facility.

Michael,
The photo was taken at the building yard at St. Nazaire while the vessel was fitting out.

The ship alongside looks like it could be one of the Van Ommeren (France) tankers. I'm trying hard to remember their names... without success.

Orbitaman is right. By the early 80s tanker freight rates had crashed and the market was swamped by an over-supply of tonnage that suddenly came into the fleet in the 1970s, as a result of over ordering. Lots of well known names, including Salen and Reksten went out of business. There was wholesale layup of VLCCs in Norwegian fjords and Scottish lochs and ships of the size of BATTILUS / BELLAMYA were simply white elephants that never made money. Single hulls were not an issue in those days.

The reason these four were built at all was the restrictions on incoming freight to France had to be mostly on french flagged vessels which was an expense the Oil Companies tried to cir***vent by building these monsters.

Michael, The link kindly provided by BlythSpirit claims that it is "The Batillus oil tanker at the end of its construction in Saint-Nazaire, being refueled by the Port-Vendres" - this may or may not answer the question as to which the ship is alongside, but I feel it may well be correct.

Well done Tonga, Port-Vedres was one of those Van Ommeren-Soflumar tankers I was thinking of.

On the contrary Phil, well done to you; I just had a quick look and got lucky, you actually knew what you were looking for. (Thumb)

Regarding double hull tankers, I came across an article this morning reporting that the worlds first double hull tanker has just undergone its third special survey. The vessel in question is the 'Arosa' and was delivered in February 1993.

And just for perspective, the seemingly tiny PORT VENDRES alongside is 510 feet LOA and 14290 DWT, about the same size as a T-2!