Face to Face
Tom Stokes
Operations Manager of Power Vapor/Oil Movements and Storage

Tom Stokes grew up in South Dakota near the Wyoming border. He moved to Alaska in 1989 and joined Alyeska in 1991. Over the years he has worn many hats at Alyeska; including financial advisor, compliance supervisor and operations advisor. Stokes became oil movements and storage operations manager in 2001. He added power vapor operations manager to his title in 2002, after a corporate reorganization.

Stokes is an avid outdoorsman and hunter who is planning a three-week hunting trip in Africa next year.

Q: What are your job responsibilities?

The Oil Movements and Storage team handles a wide variety of operations at the Valdez Marine Terminal including the crude distribution system, tank farm, east metering, west metering, Petro Star metering, industrial waste water system, terminal fire system and the terminal fuel system. The Power Vapor Team is responsible for the terminal’s power generation, distribution and vapor collection systems.

Q: Why does Alyeska collect crude oil vapor?

We collect crude oil vapor for two reasons. First, it’s a harmful pollutant that should not be released into the environment. Second, it is highly explosive when mixed with oxygen. Consequently, we have to collect the vapor to prevent it from mixing with air. We keep it separate from oxygen by pumping an oxygen-deficient gas such as a hydrocarbon-enriched vapor or exhaust gas into tanks when crude oil is removed. This process prevents the atmosphere in the tanks from becoming explosive.

Q: What do you do with the vapor?

We use a vacuum system to remove oil vapor from storage tanks and tankers into our facility. Then we burn the vapor to produce power that supplements the terminal’s diesel fuel power system. This process eliminates the oil vapor and it produces enough power to decrease marine terminal diesel consumption by two-thirds. We went from purchasing about 12 million gallons of diesel fuel per year to power the terminal to less than four million gallons. Our technicians were instrumental in proposing and implementing vapor recovery system modifications that allowed us to generate these savings.

Q: How many people work on the Power Vapor/Oil Movements and Storage teams?

We have 50 technicians and six other staff members, including supervisors, operations support personnel and administrative assistants. Several other support personnel who are assigned to engineering, planning, maintenance coordination, documentation and compliance teams also provide us with direct support.