Kulevi Oil Terminal of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR in the Black Sea region has loaded its first bitumen tanker, thus celebrating achievement of being first terminal in the region to receive and load bitumen product into the sea tanker, Trend reports with reference to the terminal’s website.
The terminal implemented new project for construction of thermal oil heating boilers, technological pipelines, bitumen heating and discharge units, bitumen loading pump station. Besides, the terminal equipped its storage tanks with heating and insulation systems for storage of the bitumen product. All technological pipelines have been equipped with heat trace system to contain necessary temperature for discharge and loading of the bitumen product. Discharge equipment consists of several heat exchangers which decreases bitumen heating time via circulation of the product via bitumen discharge and circulation pumps. Storage tanks have been equipped with immersion heaters and thermal oil heating coils which heat bitumen up to necessary temperatures.
All newly constructed equipment have been tested and commissioned prior to the startup and found in full compliance with all applicable standards and safety norms.
The terminal in the Kulevi port was put into operation in May 2008, and the transshipment of oil products was launched in June. The total capacity of the terminal is 10 million tons of liquid bulk oil cargo per year, including three million tons of oil, three million tons of diesel fuel, and four million tons of fuel oil. The total capacity of the tank farm of the terminal is 402,000 cubic meters.
