Customer involved
We worked with VOPAK PANAMA, a world’s leading independent tank storage company. Its aim is to enable the delivery of products that are vital to economy and daily lives, ranging from chemicals, oils, gases, and LNG to biofuels and vegoils.
Problem to solve
Customer needed to transfer hydrocarbons. In this case, the main problem to solve was loading the tank truck from the top, considering that there is little working space between the tank truck and the roof of the platform. Also, there was a stringent requirement to avoid electrostatic charges during the loading.
Technical solution
We designed, manufactured, and tested a top loading arm made of carbon steel. It is equipped with an actuated wafer valve and a telescopic drop pipe, capable of compensate all the different depths of the tank trucks.
It is a completely pneumatic arm: there is a pneumatic cylinder for the vertical movement actuated by a pendant remote controller.
There is a telescopic drop pipe actuated by a pneumatic gearmotor that allow the drop pipe to extend and retract even if there is a little space between the top of the tank truck and the platform roof. With this technology, we could satisfy the requirement related to avoidance of the electrostatic charges during loading because the drop pipe could touch the bottom of the tank and smoothly spread the liquid through its deflector.
Conclusions
The results are excellent, and the station works properly. We managed to satisfy all the customer needs.
