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A Guide to Tank Cleaning From Vegetable Oil to Methanol

Written by Capt Rajeev Jassal on March 10, 2018
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tank-cleaning-on-chemical-tanker There is no single fail-proof method to get your tanks cleaned to methanol standard after Vegetable oil. Sorry!!! I wish if I could tell you that if you did this particular thing your tanks will be ready for methanol standard. But it just doesn’t happen that way. The reality is that you can’t rely on one technique to clean your tanks after Vegetable oil. You have to approach it using a combination of different strategies. But positive thing is that there are few principles that we need to follow to make the tank cleaning much easier and less troublesome. Let us discuss. Type of Vegetable oil The first and foremost, we must know the type of palm oil that we had in the tanks. This is important because the tank cleaning method would depend on that. If we make a mistake in this, we can never be able to clean the tanks to methanol standard. Never!!! So here is the type of palm oils that I am referring to. Dry Semi-dry Non-dry The question is, how to find which category palm oil loaded on your vessel falls into. Tank cleaning software (provided on board by of the chemical tanker operators) helps in that. Milbros is one of such software. Let us say we just discharged following Vegetable oils Sunflower oil Crude palm oil Palm Stearin And we want to...

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Comments (52)

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  • Kulita Jsg March 10, 2018
    Your articles are excellent, Capt. Rajeev. Very easy to understand. Waiting for more.
    2

    Rajeev Jassal March 11, 2018
    Glad you liked it Kulita...

    Bogdan Victor Prajica April 10, 2018
    Hy Captain, I am at the beginning of my career as a Chief mate and I like to gather information everywhere. I would definitely take some advice on washing sunflower oil as the next cargo will be MEG. I read the article you wrote and it looked very interesting. Thank you!

  • vijeesh kumar C March 11, 2018
    Thanks alot for this excellent article. It reminded me my last tank cleaning..sir I have a doubt regarding the concept of temperature..it's found that better cleaning is obtained at a high temperature.....but what about the coating condition...last vessel we had epoxy and as per manual we should exceed the ambient temperature..... Another thing we observed was tank was cleaned after using caretaker eco...but in wall wash samples we obtained white bubbles which took almost 30mins to settle
    1

    Rajeev Jassal March 11, 2018
    I have added a para regarding coating after your comment. Regarding your comment about caretank eco, it could usually be because of traces of chemical left on the coating. More washing with clean water usually helps. Steaming of the tanks is another option.

  • Jec Dancel March 14, 2018
    Very helpful topic frm Capt. Rajeev as always! I'm a regular reader of your blog capt and I learned a lot. Thank you, looking forward for more topics esp. w/ regards to Chem Tanker operations! More power.
    1

    Rajeev Jassal March 21, 2018
    Thank you Jec....

  • Bjorn landoy March 31, 2018
    Informative and well written. I noted you mentioned use of sea water for recirculation with Alkaline cleaner. This is not a good solution as the seawater will neutralize the Alkaline. And ctc is far better than careclean eco
    2

    Rajeev Jassal April 4, 2018
    Agree with your points. As I mentioned, sometime there is no option but to use sea water because of less FW ROB. All chemicals of CP metal including CTC are far better than many of the other chemicals but these are expensive too and thus many ship owners do not provide that.

    Ruchir October 27, 2018
    Rightly said Sir. However, some chemicals (like KT Plus and Atlas 202 which are heavy duty alkaline cleaners and Potassium Hydroxide based ) have metasilicates, which is a water softening agent. Hence it can also be used with SW, as opposed to Caustic based (which should be used in FW) and can potentially leave whitish powdery residues. To assist the use of chemical cleaning agents, we should consider adding Sodium Carbonate as a water softener. This will also help in preventing hardness compounds forming and remaining on the bulkheads. Best results are achieved by using chemicals that Saponify the remaining oils. Usage of Potassium Hydroxide based Chemicals, (such as; Either Atlas 202 at 3% OR Careclean Alkaline at 3% OR Starmarine (POT) at 3% - or other Potassium Hydroxide based chems) can be assisted by using a neutral HCF detergent, such as; Teepol at 0.5% OR Careclean Neutral HCF at 0.5% OR Starmarine Neutral HCF at 0.5% or other equivalent, neutral non-hydrocarbon based chemical. The neutral detergent will assist in emulsification and thus boost the cleaning action of the Alkaline cleaner.

  • Capt Sachin Salunkhe April 24, 2018
    Comprehensive article. Many minor points have been addressed. It's useful for palms to cpp also.
    0

  • Afzal Bari April 28, 2018
    Very good article by Capt Rajeev in a very simplied manner. Have been through the other blogs by Capt Jassal highlighting the finer points. Request if you can also put a blog about tank cleaning on crude oil tankers especially w.r.t. The use of slops. Concept of primary and secondary slops, procedure for taking in water and amount of water to be taken. Have seen your blog about odme, very well written. Would be eagerly waiting for this blog. Thank you
    0

  • Adriana Smith May 7, 2018
    The guidelines do not account for the degree of solubility, treating completely soluble products and those that are partly or even just slightly soluble all in the same way. The only distinction made is between soluble and non-soluble products, but this factor should also be taken into consideration when planning the cleaning method. house cleaning services nj :)
    0

  • Kelly de Greef May 14, 2018
    Dear Capt. Rajeev, First of all we would like to share our compliments regarding your blog. The information is very valuable for everyone who is involved in tank cleaning operations. As a supplier we regularly notice that our products are known as expensive. However, we would like to put this assumption in a bit more perspective. When people are talking about price, they often only look at a price per litre. It is at least as important to consider what amount of product is required per cleaning and what the use of this product means for the duration of the total cleaning process. At CP Metal Chemicals & Henkel we strive to develop products that are of such quality that a lower concentration is required and the total cleaning time can be reduced. Bottom line, when you are looking for the most economical solution for your tank cleaning challenge it is important to take the required quantity of the product and its effect on the total cleaning time into account. Of course we would be honoured to invite you over for a visit to our company and explain everything about our products and philosophy, supported by actual figures and dates.
    2

    Rajeev Jassal July 24, 2018
    Hi Kelly... I have cleaned the tanks with CP Metal Chemicals and these are the best available so far in the industry. I do get your point and I completely agree with you. CTC-VLC cleaner is required only in the concertration of 0.2% of the solution volume. But as you said it is wrongly perceived by the Ship owners that CP Metal Chemicals are expensive. May be you need work on changing this (wrong) perception.

    Kelly de Greef September 4, 2018
    Thank you for your reaction Rajeev. The team and I do everything we can to change this perception and pointing out the importance of looking at the overall picture. Anyway, we would like to wish you all the best and we are looking forward to your next article!

  • Nitesh thakur June 6, 2018
    Dear sir, Can u please explain how to calculate amount of water required for tank cleaning on a product tanker for change of grade.
    0

  • joey July 24, 2018
    Good read. Helps people to get an insight on the tank cleaning aspects. How do you calculate the amount of water to use for re-circulation and the %age of chemical to add? Is it based on tank size? If a cleaning is required for a change from Gasoil to Clean chemicals on a MR tanker, what is the cleaning recommended?
    1

    Ruchir October 27, 2018
    The amount of water required for recirculation depends on the Pump efficiency. If you are recirculating in the same tank (using Octopus flange, etc.) you would like to have sufficient water for suction, but at the same time, you dont want the tank top to be covered with water which will hamper the Machine effect in the bottom. If you are doing recirculation from Slop tank, then you are not worried about that. For deciding the Cleaning chemical %, always refer the Product Data Sheet. Every time, refer PSD of any chemcial for its usage. A perfect example - Bleach recirculation should not be carried out for more than 1.5 hours. Because after that, it is not effective and you are just recirculating water in the tank. For cleaning from Gasoil to Clean Chemicals, you should consider the type of coating, next cargo requirement (wall wash grade or water white grade), Soot deposits, No active Rusting, etc. For detailed professional cleaning services, you may contact us on www.vikingmarines.com . Thanks.

  • CHEM MASTER July 26, 2018
    Hi mates first of all CTC will not work a lot for veg cargoes after methanol . We need alkaline based detergant first of all . Like unitor alkeen safety or Aquabreak .First try direct injection method rather than circulatuon will take a lot of time .of course after hotwash then u need to make manual spray bleach 10 - 12 % diluted it till cargo tank ph restriction for zinc coating max ph 10 for example . Then flush it with sw around 1 hour then apply fw . Then check the ph of coating with ph strips after bleach should be max 8 . Then apply di water spray . If you make circulation with alkaline based detergants u can find the heating coils and some walls with white powder so u need to use rust remover direct injection . Of course circulation method than direction injection but if u have lots of tie . So try one tank direct imjection and spray bleach if it works do not waste for circulation Never use CTC for veg cargoes . I do not recommend Ctc like water based detergants . Better order alkaline and solvent based detergangs like degreaser never use water based detergants .best regards
    0

  • Lava Engineering September 6, 2018
    great article for tank cleaning process. good to read your information. Visit us here for offshore chemical tank manufacturers
    0

  • Lava Engineering September 20, 2018
    excellent article. great to read your article thanks for posting Visit us here for offshore chemical tank manufacturers
    0

  • Dilan September 15, 2019
    What a nice article ! I also troed to make a video !! Please Watch below video of framo pump purging https://youtu.be/laedqAEIQXw
    0

  • Dilan September 15, 2019
    What a nice article ! I also troed to make a video !! Please Watch below video of framo pump purging https://youtu.be/laedqAEIQXw
    0

  • Tolga Atabey September 30, 2019
    Very good article and gives benefits concerning tank clean.But as an experienced Chief Officer I strongly recommend to perform the cleaning operations in two steps ; first clean the tanks for WW standard, and after clean the tanks to methanol standard. I believe that how water will remove all the residues from the tanks so the last thing to do will be cleaning the tanks to methanol standard. If you apply cleaning agent early and wıthout removing the residues, the cleaning agent and cargo residues may react each other and end up with serious problems. The best cleaning agent in how water at good pressure. Once a time, I did that mistake and result the residues reacted with the detergent leaving white deposits on wall and lines .Please also consider this advice.
    1

    Satheesh October 20, 2021
    Sir, Can you advise how u managed to remove the white deposits, Self having same issue

  • Leonid Senukov October 4, 2019
    Dear Capt Rajeev I am following yr blog here and do appreciate indeed how its is done. My new job what I started recently requires good knowledge of chemicals tankers... so I am trying to learn as much as possible fm open sources. If speaking of cleaning fm FAME to Methanol and apart of standard Milbros cleaning instruction are there anything specific tips you could advise ? mthks in advance brgds/Leonid
    0

  • kamran January 31, 2020
    http://khanjeewatertankcleaning.com/
    0

  • Alex June 1, 2020
    Hi captain , please tell me is it hard to perform tank cleaning from nitric acid to methanol, do we need to make purging after tank cleaning , what ph level should be and how to check it, what is neutral environment in the tank ? Can you write me on e-mail , I want to ask you some more questions , because I need to pass interview with superintendant
    0

  • service waala July 24, 2020
    Thank you for sharing this useful information, This blog is really good and the information is also well provided. I read like this article and I gain more information.http://servicewaala.in/Pages/Cleaning.aspx
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  • MD. FAZLUL QUADER November 12, 2020
    we have a nitric acid tank, is it possible to store / replace by food grade soybean oil. if possible , please suggest us the procedure and code of practice of this storage transformation.
    0

  • md fazlul quader November 12, 2020
    we have a nitric acid tank, is it possible to store / replace by food grade soybean oil. if possible , please suggest us the procedure and code of practice of this storage transformation. mail: faisalcuet@gmail.com
    0

  • Yala Hub February 22, 2021
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  • ARTHUR SEQUEIRA March 29, 2021
    Dear Capt Rajeev, Thanks very much for the detailed tank cleaning blog. Very informational!. I have a question of tank cleaning after carriage of soyabean oil. We are loading/discharging SBO on barges that are non-coated tanks. We load the same soybean oil in the same tanks, but after every discharge, at least 5 barrels of thick oil residue is squeegeed. The barge owners are suggesting to wash the tanks with FW, but I am hesitant as we are loading the same cargo and quality is not an issue. also, I understand SBO is sensitive to water and tanks will need to be dried. Any advise would be appreciated. P.S - we plan to use cutter stock or Diesel, to clean the barges before redelivering back to owners.
    0

  • ARTHUR SEQUEIRA March 29, 2021
    Dear Capt Rajeev, Thanks very much for the detailed tank cleaning blog. Very informational!. I have a question of tank cleaning after carriage of soyabean oil. We are loading/discharging SBO on barges that are non-coated tanks. We load the same soybean oil in the same tanks, but after every discharge, at least 5 barrels of thick oil residue is squeegeed. The barge owners are suggesting to wash the tanks with FW, but I am hesitant as we are loading the same cargo and quality is not an issue. also, I understand SBO is sensitive to water and tanks will need to be dried. Any advise would be appreciated. P.S - we plan to use cutter stock or Diesel, to clean the barges before redelivering back to owners.
    0

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    Praise and thanks are many in our lives, but we rarely meet people who leave an impact on us, and we may be unable to thank them, but we do not deny their actions and do not forget their actions. I say thank you for this useful article with really valuable information.
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    I was reading your blog when I was 3rd off. , I was reading your blog When I was 2nd off. and I still reading your wonderful articles as I am a Chf off. ! Thank you for everything...
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    This post is extremely radiant. I extremely like this post. It is outstanding amongst other posts that I’ve read in quite a while. Much obliged for this better than average post. I truly value it!
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  • mohammedy July 18, 2022
    Last cargo she carried in that tank was palm oil , so please advise the standard cleaning procedure to load base oil
    0

  • Sidharth September 10, 2022
    Very informative article sir, I am about to be begin my career as choff can you please guide me about the maximum concentrations of tank cleaning chemical concentrations allowed during tank cleaning chemical. Kindly guide.
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Capt Rajeev Jassal

About Capt Rajeev Jassal

Capt. Rajeev Jassal has sailed for over 24 years mainly on crude oil, product and chemical tankers. He holds MBA in shipping & Logistics degree from London. He has done extensive research on quantitatively measuring Safety culture onboard and safety climate ashore which he believes is the most important element for safer shipping.

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