Engineering Visual Presentation E12: Transition from crude to condensate: management of floating roof storage tanks at Long Island Point

Engineering Visual Presentation E12 Long Island Point (LIP) is a licenced Major Hazard Facility supporting Victoria’s energy infrastructure. After the cessation of Bass Strait crude production and the 2024 decommissioning of the Longford Crude Stabilisation Plant, LIP’s floating-roof tanks transitioned to condensate-only service. This shift introduced increased process safety and operational challenges, with predictive studies indicating higher volatility and true vapour pressure (TVP) near roof integrity limits. Understanding and controlling elevated TVP is critical to maintaining safe operating conditions. Preventing loss of containment of ignitable hydrocarbons is critical to avoiding flash, pool, rim-seal, or full-surface tank fires that could escalate to a condensate boil-over, a high-consequence event for which risks must be reduced so far as reasonably practicable. The approach focused on analysis testing standardisation across Longford and LIP for condensate TVP and density, reassessing TVP response escalation thresholds, and contingency planning for off-specification product storage. Power BI and SEEQ digital tools were leveraged to enable real-time TVP estimation and blending decisions, improving operational reliability. Data analysis on TVP variance between the two sites has proven the contribution of air ingress to the condensate TVP measurement. To access the Visual Presentation click on 'Supplementary data' below. To read the full paper click here