Tyco’s sales director of foam and foam hardware discusses the benefits of having the most up-to-date fire response technologies and services available on oil and gas installations
In December of 2005, a massive fire tore through the Buncefield fuel depot. Safeguards at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal, which handles approximately 2.37 million metric tonnes of oil a year; failed, leading to a build up of rich fuel and air vapour.
Within hours, 20 large storage tanks were ablaze and it took 180 fire-fighters, four days to put out the flames.
The infamous incident which occurred at the facility owned by Total UK and Texaco, serves as a constant reminder of how dangerous the oil industry can be, and also how important fire protection services are.
Within the oil and gas supply chain one of the most critical and dangerous of challenges is the storage of petroleum products.
“Crude oil storage is becoming highly critical, because tanks are getting bigger,” says Thierry Moinet, sales director of foam and foam hardware for Tyco.
“In the past, when you were designing a tank farm, engineers would put as much space as possible between each tank. But nowadays, ground has become more and more expensive.
This means that freight tank fields have also become more and more packed. Tanks are getting larger and taller in order to store more products and reduce capital investment into storage.”
Oil product storage, like the rest of this massive industry, requires large-scale capital expenditure, protecting those assets is absolutely imperative.
“If you compare the cost of safety products versus the cost of your company’s products burning, well, we’re talking about a miniscule amount, and a huge return on investment or the capital investment that represents the stock of oil,” says Moinet.
Considering the very crucial role which the oil and gas industry has in the Middle East, and the heavy concentration of industry assets in the region, it only makes sense that plant safety is so highly valued here. says Thierry.
The Middle East has emerged as somewhat of a leader in fire safety on oil and gas facilities. Demand for Tyco’s fire protection services continue to grow, particularly in the more critical countries.
“We are seeing that within the GCC, the largest markets are by far, the UAE and the Saudi Arabian markets. These are the two largest markets for us in the Middle East,” he says.
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“Companies like Saudi Aramco have practically set the industry standard for safety, they are considered a world-wide reference when it comes to safety standards.”
With some of the world’s largest operations and biggest reserves, it’s natural for Saudi Aramco to play it safe.
“When companies are looking for guidance on how to comply with the industry standards in terms of buying products, they are looking at how fast they can extinguish their fires, how they can provide the most safety for their fire fighting teams. These are the areas that Aramco has become a leader,” he says. “They invested early in high performance products.”
And this has also meant investing in Tyco. Having extinguished over 200 fires around the world, the company has established a global network of fire safety solutions. A testament to the company’s fire-fighting ability was its response to the Petro-Canada fire in Libya a few years ago.
“We were able to ship by airfreight, over 80 tonnes of foam over night,” reveals Moinet.
“These are the kind of stories that we bring to the market on strategic locations and tactics that we can provide to the consumers and end users in case of any emergency,” he says.
“It’s the reputation you need when providing safety in this dangerous industry.”
It’s a reputation garnered through experience and when it comes to facing a blazing oil field, experience counts.
“Our team has been exposed to many large fires across the world, which is something quite unique. You typically won’t see a refinery or tank farm’s fire chief getting as much experience with fire. Most of them will have been exposed to one or two, maybe a handful of fires, but hardly 10, 15 or 100 fires,” he notes.
But it takes more than reputation and experience to fight a fire, technology also comes into play.
The “Buncefield fire was burning for days and days because they were using a basic fluro-protein foam, one that has been proven to be less efficient on big disasters, which is why more and more of the owners, operators and companies within the oil and gas market are looking for high performance products,” says Moinet.
Last year, Tyco acquired the Williams Fire & Hazard Control brand, which is now being promoting as the premium brand for TYCO’s POG markets. The Williams emergency response programmes are designed to work in direct relationship with the clients, end users and safety managers by providing on-site safety staff, emergency equipment and emergency response foam stocks.
For Moinet, Tyco’s growth has not simply come through a wider product and service range, but also through re-emerging markets. Saudi Arabia and the UAE aside, the Middle East is rife with high risk oil and gas activities.
“I would say that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been able to capitalize on their wealth to make the right investments in fire safety, but there are other countries that have taken steps towards safety a little later, and I think there are a lot of market opportunities in these re-emerging markets.”
