OREANDA-NEWS. The Gazprom Neft Omsk oil storage facility (tank farm), Gazpromneft-Terminal, has been awarded the Grand Prix at the IV International Awards for the Best Oil Terminals and Tank Farms in Russia, the CIS and Baltic countries, held as part of this year’s 10th annual Congress on Crude Oil, LPG and Petroleum Products Trading and Transportation — Oil Terminal 2015, St Petersburg. The facility was nominated in the “Best tank farm in Russia and the CIS: innovations and safety” category.

The Omsk tank farm became, in 2014, the first to see work completed as part of an extensive refurbishment program of Gazprom Neft’s oil storage facilities. Modernisation of the Omsk tank farm has allowed significant improvements in production efficiency, lower costs in oil transhipment and storage, and better safety throughout the facility. The tank farm is fully automated, with a metering system for oil products now installed, a self-service system for drivers reducing off-loading times three-fold, and new software removing any possibility of inaccuracies in oil volumes offloaded.

Considerable attention has been paid to the safety and technological and environmental reliability of the facility throughout its reconstruction, including the installation of a high-spec emergency shut-down system, with sensors monitoring air quality and controlling fuel levels, and an automatic fire-control system. The commissioning of a vapour control unit has minimised any emission of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, through the use of a cutting-edge bottom-loading air-proofing system.

Gazprom Neft Regional Sales Director Alexander Krylov commented: “The reconstruction of our oil storage facilities (and the construction of new ones) is a priority initiative for our company. Maintaining our own oil tanks means we can guarantee both fuel quality and volumes, as well as making operations more technological and high-skilled. The Omsk facility’s operation in its first year following refurbishment demonstrates how, through almost total automation, a facility can set new industry standards in both efficiency and safety, as well as in overall service standards. We will be making full use of the experience we have gained in revamping other oil storage facilities throughout the company.”

Gazpromneft-Terminal, a subsidiary of Gazprom Neft, manages the transhipment and storage of oil products. The company’s assets include 34 oil storage facilities throughout 15 of Russia’s regions. The company owns extensive oil storage capacity through its various tanks farms, a developing transportation infrastructure network and technical equipment for the transhipment of light oil products and mazut by rail, road and river transport, and storage facilities for packaged goods, with proven quality control and oil-storage security systems in place.

The Omsk storage depot is one of Gazprom Neft’s strategic facilities in Western Siberia, located near the company’s Omsk Refinery, from which fuel enters the tank farm by pipeline. Built in 1970, full reconstruction of the facility was completed in 2014. With a total storage capacity of 20,000 cubic metres, the facility manages total transhipments of 800,000 tonnes per year. The facility’s storage capacity is enough to service several hundred road tankers every day.

A thorough-going refurbishment programme of all Gazprom Neft oil storage facilities is currently being undertaken by Gazpromneft-Terminal, with transhipment volumes from smaller facilities being transferred to those larger sites forming part of the refurbishment programme — something which will reduce operating costs in the transhipment of oil products, despite volume increasing two-fold. Refurbishment is being undertaken without any interruption to technological processes, and will have no impact on local fuel supplies.