Initial Trial Findings - Impact
• As stated, the standard way for a vessel to get nitrogen out of a special product tank after the discharge of Methanol has been to entirely fill the tank with fresh water. This procedure dispels the nitrogen as the tank fills. When the tank is then emptied, the atmosphere returns to a safe working standard with normal oxygen levels. The main issue with this procedure is that it creates a lot of waste washings for waste disposal, and therefore extremely large disposal costs and negative environmental impact for the client. The special product tanks on the trial vessel were 146m3 each. Instead of using 146m3 of fresh water to fill the tank, after collaboration with The Methanol Institution UK, we implemented the use of only 10m3 of water in order to reach a safe dilution level. A huge saving of waste washings, environmental impact, and disposal costs.
• Reducing the waste disposal by 136m3 – huge environmental saving, huge client cost reduction. • We then utilised a specialist piece of quayside machinery to return the tank to normal working atmosphere.
• Time taken to return the tank atmosphere to ‘gas free’ status and fit for entry by utilizing the quayside equipment was less than 50 minutes. (The time to discharge 146m3 of waste flushings would be approximately 2-3 hours, so large time savings also).
• The entire operation ran safely, smoothly, and efficiently from start to finish.
We have now rolled out our innovation to all clients in the North Sea and our procedures have been accepted as industry standard, with savings of 3,477 tonnes of waste over the past 12 months alone. The vast reductions of waste production also lead to a reduction of road tankers on the road transferring waste, contributing to carbon footprint improvements, and a large decrease in pumping time which in turn improves vessel turnaround time and the eradication of vessels having to be on specific berths to discharge waste. We have an extremely detailed tracking system in place which documents every aspect of every job we oversee; these documents and key performance indicators are used
to create performance and savings reports for our clients. In 2021 we saved one of our clients 3,477 tonnes of waste creation, and in the process saved them £173,859 in disposal costs. The importance of environmental protection cannot be understated, and we have come to understand that our clients look to us to not only ensure operations on the quayside are efficient and safe, but we can introduce factors which guarantee that the impact of certain operations are as environmentally friendly as possible.
In addition to the vast savings we have created, the new process has meant that our clients no longer have to move their large supply vessels to
104 | The Report • June 2022 • Issue 100
a designated waste (berth) facility to pump large volumes of waste to shore tanks to then in turn be removed by road tankers for processing at shore plants. This saves a lot of time both in the pumping process and movement around the harbour which can at times by extremely busy, waiting times for harbour movement can run into several hours. The vessels instead can discharge a far smaller volume directly to the road tankers and clean the tanks as a continuous operation on the same berth reducing vessel turnaround times.
The feedback we have received since we created our procedures have been extremely positive, see below examples:
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