Location: Milazzo Refinery, Italy, August 2009
The Milazzo Refinery is a joint venture between ENI S.p.A from Italy and Kuwait Petroleum, located on the outskirts of Milazzo. The refinery has a relatively large number of aboveground storage tanks for everything from crude oil to refined products. The tanks are regularly cleaned in accordance with inspection and maintenance.
BLABO Process chosen for atypical task
Different contractors, mainly from Italy, have cleaned thanks at the refinery. In August 2209, the refinery decided to award this particularly atypical job to the local Italien company Giovanni Aprile S.p.A, which owns a BLABO system, due to the advantages offered by the process. The task at hand was not a standard crude oil tank, so the refinery decided to utilize a contractor with a long track record of reliability; a contractor capable of implementing an innovative tank cleaning solution in keeping with the refinery policy for having the highest regard for safety, health and environmental aspects.
High solids and ballast water content
The atypical tank in question was a Trash Tank containing a relatively low content of hydrocarbons and an unusually high content of solids and ballast water These conditions made the job particularly difficult. The refinery was keen to avoid any need of having personnel entering the tank until gas-free, clean conditions were achieved. Furthermore, reducing volumes of polluting the work in relatively short time were main concerns for the refinery.
Rapid cleaning process
The work was completed in relatively short time for a job of this nature. No incidents were reported, and it is estimated that work was completed in approx. half the time required by the alternative solution proposed by other contractors. The rugged BLABO system efficiently removed large solids contents, and the fully trained and certified BLABO operators ensured speedy completion to meets the refinery’s expectations.
Benefits to the Milazzo Refinery
The Benefits for this case was:
– Non-man-entry work execution.
– Cleaning time was reduced to 2 months.
– We recovered 690m3 / 4.340 bbls oil.
– Savings for reducing waste disposal volume in 1.518 m3/ 9.560 bbls.