First strike fire extinguishing system for floating roof tanks
The National Oil Company in Qatar stores crude in several offshore terminals, predominately in large capacity floating roof tanks.
They wanted to maximise the fire protection to these tanks, which are located remotely to the other facilities on site. The particular concern was the rimseal area between the floating roof and the tank wall – they knew this is where 90% of rimseal fires start. Fixed foam systems were in place, but as with so many fixed systems protecting large capacity tanks the systems had to be manually operated. Their concern was that the distance from the Tank Farm to the Control Centre was such that any fire could burn for some time before it was physically detected.
The Angus solution was to provide an automatic, fully self-contained, first strike foam system to protect the rimseal of their tanks. Our engineers looked at all the options, including gaseous systems, and concluded that foam provided the best solution because of its ability to provide post fire security through a slow draining foam blanket sitting in the seal area of the fire.
Now known as Floatafoam, the system is installed on tanks around the world – and our engineers have continued to develop the product to tailor it to meet customers’ specific needs.
The unique combination of Angus Engineering, the manufacturing skills of our team at Bentham in the UK, and our historic and well proven technology with foam concentrates made the product possible.
