Oil Spill from Floating Roof Tank Incident This incident had occurred in a major POL terminal during

monsoon season. The terminal stored MS, HSD and Kerosene. During heavy rains one evening, about 875 KL of kerosene spilled out of the roof hose drain of the 20m dia. and 15m height Kerosene tank. The kerosene escaped to the nullah outside the terminal through the open roof hose drain valve and the open storm water drain valve in the tank dyke, and caused major oil spill emergency. Investigation into the incident The subject tank was a single deck floating roof tank with a central roof drain and 4 emergency roof drains. The sketch of the tank is shown below:

The emergency roof drain comprised of a overflow drain pipe (3 size), partly protruding above the roof plate (50 mm) and extending 50mm below the roof plate. A seal pan was provided below the roof plate so as to submerge about 30mm of the drain pipe from the bottom end. During normal operation, water is to be poured through the drain tube from top so as to create a 30mm water seal in the seal pan. During rains, the water seal prevents kerosene from spilling onto the roof through the emergency roof drain tube during movement of the tank roof. However, the water seal can be lost due to evaporation of the water, in which case, the seal will get filled with kerosene. This operational step was neglected and on the day of the incident, the seal pan and the drainpipe was filled with kerosene. As heavy rains continued, water from the roof was drained via the central roof drain into the tank dyke, and the dyke water was routed to the nullah through the open tank dyke valve. However, due to the downward movement of the tank roof due to the weight of rain water, kerosene spilled on to the tank roof through the emergency drain pipe. As

the tank lost level, more and more kerosene spilled out. After about 11 hours of heavy rainfall, 875 KL of kerosene had spilled out into the nullah, creating a major oil spill emergency. As the rain water could not build up above 50mm on the tank roof due the central roof drain which was continuously draining the water, water level in the seal pan could not be established, which could have avoided the incident. Lessons Learnt This is a case of not adhering to operating procedure with respect to ensuring that water seal is always present in the emergency roof drain seal pan, especially before onset of monsoon. The incident could have been avoided if water seal was maintained.