BUL K P L A N T S We heat trace and insulate all lines that are going to see
B100 and follow that up with external thermostat controls. Sometimes you do not have to heat the whole line – just a section of the line – so you heat that section to minimize cost.
Savage: Ideally you want to keep your B100 at around 70°F. The manufacturer might load it at 80° or 90°F by the time it reaches a plant that might be down to 70° or 80°F, but an insulated tank maintains that temperature and helps keep operating costs down. We heat trace and insulate all lines that are going to see B100 and follow that up with external thermostat controls. Sometimes you do not have to heat the whole line—just a section of the line—so you heat that section to minimize cost. And every single tank, above or below ground, will have a source of heat whether it's a heat exchanger or an immersion heater. Even if you live in an oth- erwise warm area, always provide for the worst-case scenario. If you're picking up a load of 7,700 gallons of B100 loaded hot at 90°F even with the standard trailer when it gets to the
location a hundred miles away, it might have dropped in the dead of winter maybe 10°F to 15°F. So you get it into the insu- lated tank and you may never have to use the immersion heater depending upon the rate of use. For example, in Philadelphia we did a couple of plants and last year one of them never had their immersion heater go on because they used it frequently enough that they were bringing in a trailer load every two days and it maintained the temperature. Now the product lines going out to the rack and the 2" blend lines were traced and insulated. And to save money further you want to make sure your immersion heaters are properly sized and want them running in a 460V service for less power consumption.
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APRIL 2012 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com
