Benefits of The Tankless Production Facility
Posted on January 7th, 2022
Posted in Uncategorized
In a prior article, The Tankless Production Facility: Thrills and Chills, we briefly introduced the concept of tankless facilities with an overview of reasons for and against adoption of the tankless facility. As ever, regulatory scrutiny is kindling further interest in tankless facilities. In this entry of The Tankless Production Facility series, we’ll go into more detail as to the benefits of tankless production facilities.
Safety
Potentially one of the most overlooked benefits of tankless facilities is the elimination of significant safety hazards. Atmospheric storage tanks are almost always equipped with PVRVs and/or thief hatches which allow air ingress into the tanks or tank vapor egress from the tanks. These devices are required to keep the tanks operating within their design pressure / vacuum but are the source of explosive atmosphere hazards and toxic atmosphere hazards under normal conditions. Some well-known tank safety hazards, causes, and solutions are listed in the table below.
| Hazard | Cause | Solution |
| Fire / Explosion | Ignition source introduction by public | Administrative Controls – signage, gates, education of public regarding hazards |
| Fire / Explosion | Ignition source introduction by workers | Administrative Controls – employee education and training regarding hot work and hazards |
| Fire / Explosion | Ignition source introduction by lightning / static charge | Engineered Controls – lightning protection and grounding system |
| Toxic poisoning / suffocation | Release of H2S/LEL gas through a thief hatch while an operator is present at the top of tanks | Administrative Controls – restrict access to tops of tanks using signage
Personal Protective Equipment –require use of 4-gas monitors and optionally provide supplied air for tank top access |
Despite how well-known these hazards are to industry, actual incidents happen with startling frequency. The United States Chemical Safety Board (CSB) discovered a staggering 26 tank explosion incidents in the 28-year period spanning 1983 to 2010 attributable to an ignition source being introduced by the public; in total 44 deaths and 25 injuries were identified in the study [1]. This study does not indicate frequency or severity of incidents related to the other three causes.
A facility design with atmospheric tanks has a known toxic or explosive atmosphere hazard under normal conditions, for which safeguards are implemented. Yet loss-of-life incidents still happen with too much frequency because the safeguards fail for one reason or another. Shifting to a tankless facility design without atmospheric storage tanks eliminates the toxic or explosive atmosphere hazard altogether.
Economics
Although the per tank capital cost for atmospheric storage tanks doesn’t stand out on its own, the total installed cost of a tank battery can be significant. A typical battery of (8) 400-bbl tanks can cost more than $300k when accounting for each tank itself, its foundation pad, crane costs, pipefitting, piping, and welding, PVRVs and instrumentation, and containment liner with diking.
To operate a tankless facility, existing equipment such as vapor recovery towers or heater treaters may need to be upsized to boost surge volumes for the pipeline pumps, but this cost is anticipated to be equal to or less than the savings from eliminating the atmospheric storage tanks.
Additional economic benefits can include: increased recovery of product gas that would otherwise be disposed of in the tank vent flare system; facility footprint reductions; elimination of trucking; reduction in permitting costs; and reduction in operating costs associated with emissions reporting.
Emissions
Reduction in emissions, especially methane emissions, associated with leaking thief hatches or PVRVs is likely the primary draw of tankless facilities for many readers. As regulations tighten to reduce allowable emissions, increase the cost to emit, or specify more stringent performance standards, there is a significantly increased interest in facilities without atmospheric storage tanks. For facilities that fall under OOOOa and exceed the potential to emit (PTE) 6 tons/year VOC threshold, a tankless design removes the storage vessel reporting requirements which, in turn, reduces the operational expenses associated with reporting, testing, and repairs. While safety and economics are optional drivers to develop tankless production facilities, tightening emissions regulations will likely drive tankless designs to be an eventual requirement.
Conclusion
It is thought that for safety, economic, and emissions-related reasons tankless production facilities are the future. Yet for all the benefits of not having atmospheric storage tanks, they have been a staple of well pad production facility design for many years for good reasons. In a future article, we’ll explore the challenges associated with not having atmospheric storage tanks and some potential solutions.
Sources
[1] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, “Investigative Study: Public Safety at Oil and Gas Storage Facilities.” Rep. 2011-H-1, September 2011. [Online]. Available: https://www.csb.gov/oil-site-safety/
Andrew Depperschmidt is a graduate from the Colorado School of Mines with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering. He has experience in a variety of construction and facilities projects including both upstream and midstream natural gas and crude oil processing. He joined Halker in January of 2015 as the Mechanical Department Manager and has since taken on several different responsibilities with the firm, including General Manager and Vice President. Over the course of his time with Halker, he has overseen the company’s growth, helped develop the management team, and helped structure operational processes around project execution for maximum quality. He’s inspired by Halker’s outstanding team daily and takes pride in being people-focused while driving the company’s progressive and forward-looking culture. 
Kathryn Goodman graduated from Texas A&M University with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 2011. She is a licensed professional engineer in the state of Texas and brings over a decade of mechanical and pipeline engineering experience to her role. Throughout her career, Kathryn has worked on both small and large-scale oil and gas projects in the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors.
Jeff Wellen graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in business and economics in 2002. Jeff is a licensed professional engineer with over 22 years of project management, project engineering, and mechanical engineering experience. Most of his professional career has been in the Oil & Gas industry with a wide range of experience across various types of projects including gas treating, LNG, well pad sites, cryogenic processing, biofuels, and more. He has also worked as a field engineer to support construction, as well as in a fabrication shop to oversee module/pipe-rack assembly. As a member of the Halker team since January 2018, his breadth of involvement in various projects provides Jeff a strong basis to provide operation execution support for successful project execution teams through the trials and tribulations when executing any type of project ranging from technical studies to full EPC projects in the rapidly evolving midstream and upstream industry sectors. Jeff was named an Engineering News Record (ENR) Top Young Professional in 2018 for the Mountain States Region.
Jeremy Montoya graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering with an Electrical specialty focus in 2010. Jeremy is a licensed professional engineering in multiple states and has over 14 years of experience in consulting engineering and has working in nearly every sector or the business, from oil and gas to food and beverage, mining, pharmaceuticals, commercial and residential applications. Jeremy joined Halker in 2021 and has brought a passion to build up and support staff as they provide quality engineering and design services to every client we have the opportunity to work with. With an eye for detail, value and confident support- our EI&C group will continue to grow and be recognized for their expertise, attentiveness, and quality deliverables in every project. Jeremy has also volunteered engineering services abroad, helping with the design of water/wastewater treatment facilities and medical facilites in Kenya, as well as master plans for facilities in Mexico.
Austin Dean graduated from Colorado School of Mines in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. He has experience in engineering design projects for well pad facilities, gathering systems, and midstream natural gas facilities. Starting his career at Halker in 2014, his roles and responsibilities have spanned Process Engineering, Project Engineering, Project Management, and Facilities Engineering. He specializes in jet pump artificial lift surface facilities and dynamic hydraulic modeling. Austin brings an E&P perspective to the Halker team, with a focus on project economics and larger implications of design decisions.
Paul Brennan is an industrial automation specialist, PLC programmer, business manager and product development professional. He graduated from Colorado Mesa University in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Paul now has over 25 years of experience providing industrial automation solutions and large-scale automation integration projects for oil & gas, water/wastewater, irrigation, and greenhouse industries in the US and Eastern Europe. Paul’s career has been spent developing leading edge, revolutionary automation products, and in the process, he has obtained several US Patents. Paul has notably designed products such as PADPro, PADManager, PROView and QLogiX for upstream oil & gas facilities, utilizing state of the art technologies with PLC’s and high-powered single board computers to provide advanced data collection and data processing at the well head.