On April 20, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the U.S. benchmark oil price, plunged into negative territory for the first time in history, as contract holders were forced to pay to have oil taken off their hands.
Hundreds of millions of barrels of crude oil flooded into onshore and offshore storage as coronavirus-related lockdowns and travel restrictions temporarily eliminated roughly one-third of global oil demand. Following that historic moment, oil demand became low, inventories became high and facility operations were limited. This glut seems to present an opportunity for the storage sector; however, tank storage companies around the world have reported they have struggled to keep up with the spike in demand for storage.
Scheduling a storage tank outage in compliance with regulations and industry standards can be difficult, especially with hundreds of millions of barrels of crude filling worldwide storage facilities to the brim. A California-based engineering company, Diakont Advanced Technologies Inc., is now supplying award-winning inspection services to provide comprehensive storage tank floor inspections while the tanks remain filled and operational, which greatly simplifies tank inspection and maintenance during these trying times. Certified Diakont inspection personnel use nondestructive testing (NDT) sensors and high-definition cameras on robotic crawler tools to deliver complete API 653-compliant inspection coverage. With tank storage demand at record levels, maintenance of these critical pieces of infrastructure is vital to ensure corrosion or other degradation of the tank structures does not cause the contents to be released.
Diakont's field service technicians use their fleet of certified explosion-proof Stingray robotic tank inspection crawler tools to inspect the tank floors of above-ground petroleum storage tanks. Conducting robotic inspections eliminates the need to take tanks out of service and make them safe for human entry, reducing inspection costs by up to 90 percent. The crawler tools combine magnetic flux leakage (MFL) and ultrasonic testing (UT) sensors to meet industry requirements (API 653, EEMUA). All scan data is encoded with position information, resulting in a complete C-scan of the tank floor.
In March, Diakont's Stingray robotic tank inspection technology was awarded the Emerging Technology Award during this year's Global Tank Storage Awards. This honor affirmed industry trust in this paradigm shift in inspection methodology. Before Diakont developed this robotic technology, tank operators had no viable options for conducting storage tank floor inspection other than taking these crucial infrastructure assets out of service, incurring substantial cost, releasing extensive greenhouse gases, putting personnel in confined spaces, and incurring several weeks of downtime with associated loss of productivity. This technology allows for more frequent, effective inspections of these critical assets, at lower cost, while reducing the environmental impact and increasing personnel and public safety.
As the world cautiously removes lockdown restrictions in response to the coronavirus pandemic and economies slowly begin to restart, the industry will likely feel the impact of the oil demand shock linger for several months -- especially with the threat of a possible future wave of infections looming. Diakont has faith in the ingenuity of the oil industry to bounce back as it has with historic shocks to the market such as the 2008 global recession and the 1973 oil embargo.
As oil companies tighten their belts and fill their tanks, innovators in robotics such as Diakont are here to soften the blow and help the industry reduce costs, while enabling increased personnel safety and environmental compliance.
For more information, visit www.diakont.com/tank or call (281) 724-8188.
