Case Studies

Coryton Refinery, Stanford le Hope, Essex

LOCATION Essex
CONTRACT START DATE May 2009
CONTRACT COMPLETION DATE July 2009

In May 2009 we were contacted by Veolia Environmental to advise on an expedient and safe system of cutting out the steel roof structure from a 91 million litre crude oil tank in Coryton Refinery, Stanford le Hope, Essex.

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Previous attempts to cut away the roof, in sections via high pressure water cutting, had proved to be laborious and costly. The roof section, having collapsed off its supporting legs and warped, had come to rest on top of crude oil sludge over a metre deep. Working in conjunction with our partner Veolia Environmental, who had the unenvious task of clearing over 3,000,000 litres of heavily contaminated oil residue from beneath the lid, we employed our remote controlled Brokk 330 complete with heavy duty steel shear to progressively cut away the roof structure into manageable pieces. All the cut pieces and the machine were removed from the interior of the tank by crane.

Although the reduction and clearance process was constrained by the working environment and the strict necessity for monitoring and air testing the work was completed in a little over 5 working weeks. When preparatory work to make good the internal apron is complete, the refinery plan to re-fabricate a new roof and to put the tank back into full production and the storage of crude oils.