A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE DESIGN AND INSTALLATION OF CRUDE OIL WASHING SYSTEMS

It is the objective of this presentation to provide guidelines for the design of crude oil washing (C.O.W) installations based on the experiences to date of a major oil company in retrofitting a representative selection of VL/ULCCs in compliance with IMCO/TSPP 1978 Specifications. The vessels involved had all been previously fitted with extensive installations in keeping with the company objective of complete crude washing of all cargo tanks whenever terminal and discharge conditions permitted. The original installations were carried out in the period 1976-1977. Most of the installations were retrofits to existing ships though a small number of vessels still under construction or in the design stage were included. The design of these C.O.W. systems was based on extensive testing of prototype installations and was considered adequate at the time to achieve significant environmental benefits by way of minimizing water washing of tanks with the consequent inevitable discharge of some oil into the seas. Indications at the time were that the installation of these systems would result in an acceptable return on investment. However, the installations carried out at that time, in many cases fall significantly short of compliance with the IMCO/TSPP 1978 C.O.W. Specifications. In addition, experience has shown that in some cases, the crude oil washing operation resulted in excessive terminal delays at discharge.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Paper presented on 13 March 1980 to the New York Metropolitan Section, SNAME.
• Corporate Authors:

  Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers

  601 Pavonia Avenue
  Jersey City, NJ  United States  07306-2907
• Authors:
  • Cowles, W C
• Publication Date: 1980

Media Info

• Pagination: n.p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Cleaning; Petroleum refining; Pollution control; Storage tanks; Tankers
• Old TRIS Terms: Crude washing; Tank cleaning; Tanker pollution prevention
• Subject Areas: Environment; Maintenance and Preservation; Marine Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00316711
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: Conf Paper
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 8 1980 12:00AM