OREANDA-NEWS. December 12, 2013. “Toward Achieving Operational Excellence” was the theme of the First Distribution and Terminals Technical Exchange Meeting and Exhibition held by Distribution and Terminal Operations at the Technical Exchange Center.

After welcoming the attendees in his opening remarks, Mohammed Al-Omair, vice president of Pipelines, Distribution and Terminals, outlined the focus of the event as improving marine and truck loading reliability, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, profitability, and health, safety and environment (HSE) for their substantial weight in the Distribution and Terminal Operations business.

“As the most reliable oil producing company, Saudi Aramco is committed to exceeding the expectations of its customers, partners, employees, and the communities where it operates. Saudi Aramco is committed to creating and sustaining a standard of performance that makes it the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals company.” he said. “This event promotes innovation, technology, learning and continuous improvement that enable Saudi Aramco to remain competitive in an ever-changing business environment.”

Before inaugurating the exhibition, Al-Omair invited participants to take advantage of the program, which was organized to provide an effective platform for exchanging ideas, pooling experiences, reaching solutions to challenging problems and accelerating individual and organizational learning.

With more than 400 professional participants from various Saudi Aramco departments, and 16 exhibitors from various companies in the industry, more than 20 experts from Saudi Aramco and participating companies offered their insights in how to improve the main processes of marine and truck loading.

Aymen A. Al-Ghamdi from Strategy and Business Development at Saudi Aramco has been working on the hydrocarbon trucking transformation initiative. He spoke of the advantages of aluminum over carbon-steel in manufacturing tankers for hydrocarbon products transportation, primarily that aluminum tankers weigh 30 percent less than carbon steel tankers. This translates to a 20 percent reduction in fleet size, lower fuel consumption, and better hydrocarbon products quality due to the non-reactive, non-corrosive and non-rusting physical properties of aluminum. 

The Truck Loading Foam Fire Protection Systems was the topic of Daniel R. John’s presentation. John, who works in Saudi Aramco’s Fire Protection Department, provided a simple understanding of basic design concepts and requirements of the Truck Loading Area Foam-Water Spray systems. He also gave a brief overview of foam concentrate and proper proportions and acceptable ranges of foam solution mixture.

Amin A. Bushnag from the Terminal Operations Department presented on “Single Vs. Double Closure Marine Breakaway Couplings – Ju’aymah Terminal Plan” and advocated the  introduction of the Marine Breakaway Coupling (MBC) system as it protects the marine environment by minimizing offshore hose transfer oil spills caused by tanker breakout or internal pressure surge incidents.

With the proposed plans of the Saudi government to expand its railway network to the north of the Kingdom, Kevin T. Braddell from Quality Assurance and Loss Control spoke on the possible use of railroads for fuel distribution and its advantages.

Abdullah Al-Ghazal and Jay Savla discussed the “Optimized Ship Scheduling of Refined Products” and described challenges involved in the distribution of refined products by various transportation modes. They also presented a description of scheduling issues related to the movement of refined products by shipping for which an optimized solution is used by OSPAS, highlighting the benefits that can be achieved from using the visualization of scheduling possibilities.