Clean your tanks, don’t junk them

“Oil companies and other forecourt owners are wasting millions of pounds a year by disposing of perfectly serviceable fuel storage tanks instead of cleaning them when they have a sludge problem,” says David Plumb & Co director Nigel Plumb.

“This is done for the best of reasons, safety, but over the years we have proved time after time that tank cleaning can be done in perfect safety as well as cost effectively.

“The problem is that the only real way to clean a fuel storage tank is for a person to go inside and physically clean it. As even empty tanks contain an explosive mixture of fuel vapour and air, many companies have adopted a policy, where they have a sludge problem, of solid filling their tanks, removing them, expensively disposing of them and replacing them with new ones. In our view this is like changing the car because the ash tray is full.

“The cleaning method we have developed saves all this expense and, as our track record shows, it can be done in perfect safety – we would never put one of our people in danger. After 39 years of operation, we know what we are doing.”

The technique David Plumb & Co uses starts with filling the tank with inert foam to drive out all the residual fuel vapour.  Once this foam dissipates it leaves behind an easily removable residue. The inspection hatch is then removed and an operative, wearing full respiratory protection and personal protection equipment, goes into the tank to clean the tank manually. The whole procedure, which can cost as little as £1,000, can be carried out over night if necessary, thus causing minimum disruption.

In some cases, water can be used instead of foam. When pumped out, the resulting oil-water mix is put through a separator, which cleans up the water to the point where it can be returned to the water cycle, with just the dregs needing disposal – thus making a considerable savings on disposal costs.

The system can also be used to cut out the separating baffle plates in dual compartment tanks. These were commonly installed in low capacity sites in previous years, when most garages sold two-star, three-star and five-star as well as four-star petrol. Now that larger tanks are required, these old duel compartment tanks can be made into a single unit and re-used.

“Again,” says Nigel Plumb, “our safety record on this is impeccable.”

As well as its core business, the company can also remove pumps, dismantle canopies and demolish any other forecourt buildings.

“This gives us the ability to do virtually everything that is required in the decommissioning of a site without the need for subcontractors,” says Nigel Plumb. “This gives us as much control as possible over a contract – particularly timing. The only time a contract over runs is when we hit serious ground pollution problems.”

1 December 2006

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