Company Magazine for the Odfjell Group - April 2008

form the Best Practices Committee. RobertoFranck has worked with the SouthAmerican terminals since the 1960s, andhas been instrumental in the buildingand operation of terminals in Argentina,Brazil, Chile, and Peru. MartinRuinaard and Hans Vermeulen have operatedand built several terminal facilitiesin Europe, and OT Rotterdam sincethe 1980s. Clayton Sharver and JerryShreter have operated and built in OTHouston since the 1980s. Shaolin Wanghas built facilities in OT Dalian and OTJiangyin since the mid 1990s.The committee will first concentrate onthe big ticket topic in a terminal, whichis the tank design. The cost of the tanksis 40% of the total cost of a bay facility,reflecting the large amount of labourand material that they incorporate, andtherefore they offer the largest opportunityfor improvement. The constructionof the tanks has many risks thatneed to be addressed and minimized,such as safety of construction personnel,fire and exposure hazards, risk of engineeringand construction errors duringthe concrete work, the tank welding,and the hydro-testing of the tank.Proper operation of the tanks in regardsto storage, cleaning, circulation, filling,emptying and monitoring are issuesthat exist for the tank’s life of 50 yearsor more. Corrosion minimization anddetection are also major cost factors inthe life of a tank. The tanks come in avariety of diameters, heights, materialof construction, foundations, pressurerating, equipment and instrumentation.Most of our tanks are designedto minimize the emission of vapours bybeing pressurized, similar to the ships,and to allow flaring and vapour balancing.The standardization will look at allof these areas. Future topics that will bestandardized include the tank bays, thepump areas, the jetty line systems, thedock systems and the utilities.The Tagsa Campana terminalThe Rotterdam terminalThe standardization of tank outfittingfor different chemicals will be anothermajor topic for the committee. Due tothe nature of Odfjell’s business, we arefrequently asked to store chemicals thatrequire special outfitting. The cost of theoutfitting is estimated prior to the leaseagreement with our customer, and theoutfitting is installed after the agreementis made. The costs for estimating,engineering and the cost of engineeringerrors can be reduced if the outfittingmethods are standardized. The schedulefor estimating and construction can alsobe shortened through standardization,and this is often a critical concern inour service industry. The outfitting thatwe usually see in the terminals consistsof circulation, insulation, heat tracing,heating, chilling, low oxygen, filtering,metering, special pumping and blendingsystems. These systems come inmultiple variations as a function of thecharacteristics of the chemical that isbeing stored and the experience of theterminal. Project management practiceswill also be reviewed and standardizedto assist in communication and cost andschedule control of projects.The aim of the committee is to assembleseveral times per year to review andmake recommendation on one or moretopics. This will result in the issuance ofthe standard for the topic that was covered.The writing and publishing of thestandards will be done by the staff of OTHead Office. We are looking forward tothe first meeting of the Best PracticesCommittee in March, in the new HeadOffice in Rotterdam.Odfjell Quarterly April 2008 11