Based on this agreement, €200 million would be invested during the first three years. Then, a 15-year operation period is determined.

To be more clear about the provisions set out in the agreement, the investor would have to account for the capital, design, commodity and equipment supply, and construction and operation of 20 500,000-barrel storage tanks and associated facilities over three years. Another equally important issue is that the contractor would have to account for maintenance for 15 years. After the end of the 18th year, the ownership of the facilities would be transferred to National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).

Abdollah Ahmadi, manager of crude oil storage tanks project in the Goreh-Jask crude oil pipeline project, in the early phase of this strategic project, 2 mb/d would be stored while in phase 1, 10 mb/d storage is envisaged.

The crude oil storage tanks construction project, which accounts for 18% of the total Goreh-Jask crude oil pipeline project, ‌ in the first phase consists of 20 storage tanks, each with a capacity of 500,000 barrels, a 15-megawatt power plant and a water treatment plant, on a 130-hectare land in the Jask region and the Makran coasts.

Location

The project for constructing oil storage tanks and its associated facilities is located in Jask Port and the last 2 km of this 1,000 km area is located near Mount Mubarak.

NIOC has located about 5,000 hectares of coastal lands located 65 km west of Jask, near Mount Mubarak, for the construction of special oil, gas, refining and petrochemical projects. In this regard, construction of oil storage tanks in this strategic area is important in terms of feeding the planned refineries.

In other words, with the construction of these storage tanks and their development in future phases, another goal of NIOC for presence in the global market of petroleum products and providing necessary infrastructure in the region to erect affiliated industries as part of Makran development plan would be realized.

With the construction of refineries and petrochemicals in the Jask region, in the future we will have a zone similar to Assaluyeh in Jask, with the difference that Assaluyeh is a gas region and Jask is an oil region.

Ahmadi underscored the importance of constructing storage tanks in the national and strategic Goreh-Jask project, production, transfer, storage, gauging and export of oil as important components in the production chain up to oil export and said: “Storage for adequate, timely, and uninterrupted supply is important for national and international demand.”

He also stated that the establishment of a new oil terminal in the east of the Strait of Hormuz is one of the important goals of the project: Storage plays an important role in controlling, stabilizing and sustaining supply, and the reservoirs of this important project are designed to reduce risk and stabilize. The oil market is designed and running so that we can have reliable storage in this regard.

Ahmadi also stated that establishment of a new oil terminal east of the Strait of Hormuz is one of the important goals of the project. He said: “Storage plays an important role in controlling, stabilizing and sustaining supply, and the storage tanks of this important project are designed to reduce risk and stabilize the oil market is designed so that we can have reliable storage in this regard.”

Goreh-Jask Outstanding Feature

The project of construction of oil storage tanks and associated facilities has different features compared to other storage tanks in other sectors of the petroleum industry. In other words, it should be said that this distinction is considered as a kind of prudence and foresight to prevent any danger and damage, which has been considered in different parts of the storage tanks, some of which we will describe in the following. First of all, it should be noted that all the tanks of this project are metallic, for whose construction 35,000 tonnes of sheets has been used.

The more important point in the implementation of this project is that these tanks have a double-walled floating roof. The importance of this measure is that the floating roof in these tanks not only prevents evaporation of oil, but also it helps drain it from the tank by applying pressure on the surface of the oil inside the tank.

Other features that distinguish these tanks from similar storage tanks used in the petroleum industry is the installation of lightning rods in them. It should be noted that climate change in the region, as well as the presence of a floating roof in the tanks, increases the likelihood of fires in them. However, PEDEC, having learned from the events and fires that occurred in oil tanks in the past, has tried to solve these problems in the Jask oil storage tanks, and for this purpose, the Gore-Jask tanks have been fitted with a lightning rod.

One thing to keep in mind is that desludging oil storage tanks is one of the problems we have always faced in the petroleum industry. In the past, desludging operations, in addition to taking the tank out of service for several months, caused a large part of the tank volume to be lost during the operation and there was a possibility of damage to the environment, but Jask tanks have also considered this challenge. In all tanks, sludge prevention systems are installed. The SRJ system is installed in the central part of the tanks and by operating it in the tank once or twice a month for 24 to 48 hours and by creating circular movements, it prevents the formation of sludge in the tanks. This system completely prevents the formation of sludge in 500,000-barrel tanks, which in this sense is not considered a threat to the environment.

Due to the lack of infrastructure to supply electricity in the Jask region, construction of a 15-megawatt power plant to supply the electricity needed for this project has become necessary; a 15-megawatt power plant whose capacity will increase to 50 megawatts is currently under construction.

In order to supply the required water to different parts of this project, construction of a water treatment unit has been envisaged, which will be able to treat water with a capacity of 650 cubic meters per day.

Active and Dynamic Manpower

In the construction of crude oil storage tanks, the national plan for the transfer of crude oil from Goreh to Jask, 750 people are involved directly and 3,000 to 4,000 others are involved indirectly.

Land leveling, dynamic compaction operations on 49 hectares, directing water in the basement, using PVC pipes should be mentioned as difficulties in this important part of the project. In addition to this hard activity, extreme heat and high humidity in the coastal area of ​​Makran are among the conditions that the manpower working in this area is accustomed to or has to endure, but regardless of these climatic conditions, what has made working in this area difficult pertains to special conditions have made the implementation of the operational activities of this project challenging, among which we can mention the type and soil density of that area.

According to Ahmadi, PVD is also pounded in Jask tanks to strengthen the bed. PVDs are actually pipes that are placed 15 meters by 15 meters vertically at a distance of one and a half meters from the ground, the total of which will be 1,000 kilometers. To carry out pre-loading operations, wherein the tanks are to be built, more than 1.4 mcm of soil in the area will be made into a hill. This will pave the ground for the necessary consolidation to build a storage tank in that area. When the excavation operation reaches four and a half meters above sea level, the construction of the concrete foundation will begin.

These crude oil storage tanks will have a capacity of 10 million barrels of light and heavy crude oil and include 20 floating roof metal tanks, each with a capacity of 500,000 barrels.

Courtesy of Iran Petroleum