In the Field
Oil storage tank at Valdez Marine Terminal receives inspection and cleaning

The Valdez Marine Terminal at the end of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System is home to 15 active crude tanks used to manage oil inventory.

The gigantic tanks altogether make up a critical piece of infrastructure and play an important part in getting oil from the ground to a vessel.

With that in mind, Alyeska has procedures in place to ensure the integrity of the tank by performing inspections in accordance with the American Petroleum Institute. This involves routinely cleaning and then inspecting each tank to ensure its reliability.

Each enormous tank rises 63 feet tall, and 250 feet across, and can hold 510,000 barrel of oil at a time. The total capacity of the 15 tanks is 7.3 million barrels.

Each tank requires cleaning before an inspection can take place. That’s no easy task. It takes approximately 20 people to plan, coordinate, and carry out a tank cleaning and inspection.

“The personnel doing the internal cleaning have the greatest challenge,” said Doug Fleming, Oil Movements and Storage Project SPOC. “It has to be one of the most exhausting, dirty, and under-appreciated jobs in the oil industry.”

Peak Oil Field Services currently cleans tanks at the VMT, and has done so since 1992.

“The most challenging aspect is taking people from multiple backgrounds and age groups and integrating them into a cohesive team that can work well in many aspects of tank cleaning from removing the heavy solids to wiping down the tank with rags after final wash,” said Wayne McNelly, Peak Oil Field Services.

This year, Tank 8 in the East Tank Farm is getting cleaned, inspected, repaired, re-coated, and returned to service. The 18 tanks at the VMT are located in two areas: Tanks 1 through 14 are located in the East Tank Farm; and Tanks 15 through 18 are located in the West Tank Farm, where only Tank 16 is active.

Tank 8 was decommissioned when the project began in June and is expected to return to service in mid-December.

The total cost for this project is estimated to be roughly $9.8 million, with many hours of coordination between Alyeska departments and regulatory agencies.