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New tankage

targetsIrish market

Atlantic Fuel Supply Company Limited (AFSC)is a newly established companyformed to provide and operate a new oil storage and distribution facilitynetwork for the Republic of Ireland market, writes Adrian Watson,Director ofAntrim-based Project Design Engineers Limited (PDE), who designed andmanaged the project from concept to commissioning.

The 79,800m3 capacity AFSC terminal located in Foynes, Limerick, Republic of

Ireland is the one of the first post Buncefield oil terminals of this size to be

constructed in the UK and Ireland. Originally a brownfield site, the facility took two

and a half years to develop and opened on schedule for commercial business on the 4th

October 2010. The terminals refined oil storage capacity is divided between five

main products unleaded petrol, derv (diesel), gas oil, kerosene and heavy fuel oil

and comprises 16 main storage tanks located within two impervious bund systems.

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The terminal also has Biofuel blending facilities for FAME, Ethanol and Heavy Fuel

oil blends. The terminal is ship fed from a Shannon Foynes Port Company owned

jetty in the Shannon Estuary, which provides the facility for offloading tankers up to

35,000-tonnes capacity. The contents of the tanks are monitored by a state-of the- art

radar gauging system supplied by Saab, which is claimed to offer an accuracy of +/-

0.5 mm and is Weights and Measures approved for inventory control. The gauging

system has the facility to provide a large spectrum of alarms to ensure safe import and

discharge of products. During the design process and construction phases the

Buncefield reports were taken into consideration and the terminal is fully compliant

with and in some cases exceeds the final recommendations. Typical examples are; the

tanks are protected by independent SIL rated Hi-Hi level detection and inlet and outlet

remotely operated shut-off valves (ROSOVs) on all tanks irrespective of product

class. The tanks are located in two bunds which have been designed and constructed

with full implementation of the Buncefield recommendations and this includes totally

impervious containment structures to BS 8007, pipeline wall penetrations which

allows post construction inspection, stainless steel water bars, fire resistant rope and

Flamex sealant installed in the expansion joints. The site has both secondary andtertiary containment systems ensuring that no spilled product or fire water leaves site.

The Class I products bund is equipped with open path vapour detection which will

alert the operator of any vapours which may have accidentally escaped from primary

containment.

Products held on site are either loaded into bottom loading road tankers via four

loading gantries or top loading via one top loading gantry, ship bunkering facilities are

also available on site for all products. The bottom loading gantries are equipped with

six loading arms, while the top loading gantry is equipped with four loading arms.

Each arm is capable of loading product at 2,250 litres/minute and all blending is

performed at the point of loading into the vehicle. The products are pumped to the

gantries using a combination of 17 inverter-driven 90-kw, 4,500-litre/minute product

pumps. Schneider variable speed drives were selected as part of the design to reduce

the power consumption, as each of the pumps is capable of loading two arms

simultaneously. Therefore, if only one arm is requesting product, the pump speed is

reduced to match the demand. The pumping system is also designed to run at a

reduced 45 Hertz at full demand, thereby further reducing power consumption. The

sites electricity supply is installed with active filtration and power factor correction in

order to minimise all possible losses and distortion of the supply. All other pumps,

including dewatering pumps, use energy efficient soft starts as their method of

starting. A CSI Fuel Facs terminal automation system is used to control the efficient

transit of the road tanker from the entry gate to the exit gate. This includes the remoteordering of product, driver and vehicle access to the site, pre-authorised loading and

designation of product to compartment on the vehicle, automatic selection of markersand additives for the product, and generation of all necessary Customs & Excise

paperwork.

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Product marking

The conventional method of storing gas oil and kerosene is to mark the product with a

Customs & Excise marker, either in the refinery or as the product is loaded into the

storage tank. PDE has developed a point of discharge product marking system whichis integrated into the AFSC terminal automation system, which marks the product as it

enters the road tanker. Self correcting flowmeter injection technology is used to

accurately inject and monitor the amount and type of marker injected into each batch

as the vehicle is loading the base product at the gantry.

A carbon bed vapour recovery unit has been installed to reduce VOC (volatile organic

compound) emissions into the atmosphere and to recover product from the vapour.

On site, the vapour is processed and returned to storage this vapour previously

would have been dispersed into the atmosphere. To reduce emissions on-site, the

petrol and ethanol tanks have been installed with floating decks which prevent the

vapours venting to the atmosphere during normal tank operations. The AFSC oilterminal has been designated a top tier COMAH (Control of Major Accident

Hazards) site. The COMAH regulations for such sites require bulk storage operators

to identify potential major accident hazards and implement measures in order to

prevent major accidents and to limit their consequences for people and the

environment.