Increased safety at an oil terminal in Fujairah (UAE)
Operator IL&FS was awarded the “Safe and Secure Port/Terminal of The Year 2017” certificate
The Emirate of Fujairah is one of the largest tank farms in the Middle East with 328 tanks in operation so far. The site handles a wide range of petroleum products with a capacity of over 333 000 m3. It was built by the IL&FS Group and opened in 2014. IL&FS imposed stringent operational safety standards right from the start to avoid any overfill accidents which have plagued the industry in general, resulting in loss of life, loss of image and billions of dollars of damage.
Customer benefits in a nutshell
Increase of plant safety by using an independent and diverse system to protect life, environment and assets
Highest safety standards by using a state-of-the-art and certified safety system
Increase of efficiency and reduction of efforts by performing remote automated proof tests
Reduction of insurance costs as well as increase of plant performance and productivity
Increase of business by attaining an image boost
The customer's challenge
Although Liquiphant point level switches were deployed from the beginning, they were subject to regular manual proof tests. These involved personnel climbing the tanks, removing the transmitter and simulating an alarm by putting the sensor into a bucket of oil. Typically, these took four hours per test and tank, during which time the tank was out of operation. In addition to time, limited space in the control room and integration with existing SCADA system were also challenging.
The Endress+Hauser solution
With the introduction of the AOPS, such time-consuming tests have become a thing of the past. The IEC 61511 SIL-rated solution detects, indicates and prevents hazardous overfills of storage tanks according to API 2350. It has been SIL2/SIL3 certified by independent external safety inspectors and includes an automated proof test function covering sensor, logic solver and alarm devices. The proof test results are stored and can be printed as a report: proof test of 16 tanks in less than 5 min!
