Lightning Protection Technology Of Oil Tank

As a natural phenomenon, lightning is an evitable events in the environment; and costs economic loss and safety issues. As long as the level of internationalization is getting higher, oil & gas industry in China has higher requirement on sustainability development strategy implementation, EHS performance and risk prevention and control. Particularly for fuel storage tank, the focuses are safety production, avoiding environmental and ecologic contamination, and prevention of accident. According to statistics, PetroChina Pipeline Company alone is managing over than 100 fuel tanks; and a total of more than 1100 fuel tanks with over than 50,000 m3 each are installed in China national wide. Some professionals expect in total more than 10,000 fuel tanks in various size are installed in China. In the same pace of GDP rapid growth, the demand for crude oil and fuels is significantly increased. The size of petroleum and petrochemical plants is becoming bigger and bigger. In order to increase the crude oil reservoir and to accommodate the growing demand, the volumes of both the newly-built individual oil tank and total tank farm are becoming bigger and bigger. The total volume of planned oil reservoir in China is approximately 10 million m3, and the unit tank volume will exceed 200,000 m3. If any severe safety accident occurred in such huge tank storage tanks, it will cause significant economic loss, environmental contamination, unacceptable social impact, and even jeopardize country energy security strategy. The research on how to prevent the oil tanks from lightning damage during raining season is then essential for oil tank safety operation.In this article, based on the study and roof-cause investigation for the major lightning accidents on oil tanks in China and oversea countries, the roof cause for oil tank lightning damage was disclosed, and the corrective actions on both hardware and software were also proposed to improve the lightning prevention. These proposed corrective actions could be implemented on oil tank operation and management to enforce oil tank's anti-lightning capacity. In addition, in combination with Chinese local circumstance and fuel property, based on the successful implementation of aluminum dome on oil tank lightning prevention in oversea countries, the feasibility and safety of utilizing aluminum dome on oil tank lightning in China were exercised, considered the advantages of the aluminum dome with floating roof tank and designed for lightning protection on base of aluminum dome effect and economic benefit. The result of the exercise can be used as guidance and reference for future oil tank design and construction and maintenance.