Safety as standard no matter the scenario

COVID-19 has seen a dramatic fall in fuel demand as fewer planes take to the skies and drivers keep their cars off the road. This knock-on effect has meant fuel storage tanks around the world are rapidly reaching capacity and has led to producers scrambling for places to store their excess production. Oil companies have been searching for alternative ways to store crude as traditional storage becomes more expensive and harder to find. One suggested method has been to store fuel in freight trains. However, the director of liquid operations at US-based Colonial Terminals Michael Mashburn, advises producers should proceed with caution. ‘It would be very costly storage first of all, but if everybody operates by stringent guidelines, then in theory, there shouldn’t be any significant risk increase. However, one stationary storage tank is generally less risky than 200 mobile storage cars, as it’s at least 199 fewer closures and generally fewer opportunities for something to potentially go wrong,’ he explains. And stringent guidelines are something of which Mashburn is very familiar. Over the past 10 years he has been developing a detailed tank car inspection checklist to...