Title: ConocoPhillips Warns of Terminal Lockouts
Description: Citing a safety issue, the company says that marketers and carriers will have to retrofit drain tubes on their trucks and trailers or face being locked out of terminals.
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Drain tubes siphon off water that accumulates in the trough on top of trucks and trailers. They can be routed externally along the side or back of the vehicle, or internally through the product compartment.� If a tube becomes obstructed, water accumulated inside can freeze, causing it to crack.
HOUSTON ? ConocoPhillips has told marketers and common carriers that they will have to retrofit their trucks and trailers if an internal drain tube leads to a spill or face being locked out of the company?s terminals.
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?In the last few years, trough drain failures have led to several large spills at our terminals. In each case, the spill resulted in a large product loss, risked the safety of the terminal and caused a significant business disruption to the affected carrier,? ConocoPhillips terminals manager Miles Kajioka said in a letter to marketers and carriers.
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Drain tubes siphon off water that accumulates in the trough on top of trucks and trailers. They can be routed externally along the side or back of the vehicle, or internally through the product compartment.� If a tube becomes obstructed, water accumulated inside can freeze, causing it to crack.����
?If the cracked tube is internal, then the next time the compartment is loaded, product will flow through the crack in the tube and spill onto the ground,? Kajioka?s letter said. The best way to eliminate the risk is to remove interior drain tubes and replace them with exterior tubes, he said.
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?A less effective, but still acceptable way to reduce the risk is to establish a maintenance procedure to prevent ice from building up inside the drain tubes,? Kajioka noted.
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ConocoPhillips wants carriers to email the company, providing DOT numbers where applicable, and listing the terminals where they lift product. �In the email, they must also acknowledge the following statement: ?Your trucks and trailers only use external drain tubes OR you have a preventive maintenance program in place for your internal drain tubes.?
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Originally, ConocoPhillips said that if marketers and carriers did not respond to its email requirement by Oct. 31 they would no longer be allowed to load at the company?s terminals. �
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?Additionally, effective Nov. 1, 2011, if a spill occurs through an internal drain tube in one of your trucks or trailers, you will have 90 days to retrofit all of your trucks and trailers with external drain tubes,? Kajioka said.
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However, the company says it has now delayed the deadline by a few weeks.
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?We have not yet locked any carriers out, as we wanted to give them more time to respond,? ConocoPhillips? spokeswoman Romelia Hinojosa said. ?Lockouts will occur in December for any carrier who has not agreed to inspect their internal drain tubes.?
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Cracked drains can be ?a serious safety issue,? Hinojosa added. There were two spills involving more than 1,000 gallons of gasoline at a ConocoPhillips terminal in Mississippi earlier this year as a result of cracked internal drains, she said.
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The new ConocoPhillips policy is effective at all terminals operated by the company ? in all, 43 facilities in 18 states from the East Coast, through central states such as Oklahoma and Texas, to California and Washington in the West.
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?If you?ve just bought a new truck with an internal drain, you?re not going to be happy with this, especially if you?re in a market where it doesn?t freeze too much,? said one ConocoPhillips wholesaler.
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Another marketer in the Midwest said he switched to external drains a few years back after a spill caused by a frozen internal tube. ?We had problems with ice plugging up and busting the tube, which in turn caused a spill at a terminal,? said the marketer, who operates three transports. ?If I were in ConocoPhillips? position, I?d probably say the same thing.?
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There is no U.S. Department of Transportation rule that actually requires transports and trailers to be equipped with drain tubes, says John Conley, president of the National Tank Truck Carriers Association.
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?It?s not a common design problem, but if you don?t make the tubes part of your maintenance inspections you could have trouble,? Conley says.
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There are simple ways to retrofit a truck, but costs can run $3,000 to $5,000 per unit, depending on whether steaming is involved, says Orville White, vice president of Sentinel Transportation LLC, which handles all ConocoPhillips? fuel transportation needs. The firm is a 50-50 joint venture between ConocoPhillips and the DuPont companies and hauls product and chemicals in 48 states.
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Marketers could run external drains down the back or the side of trucks, but fitting tubes at the side of the vehicle can be a problem because they can be dislodged by tree branches. The most common approach is for manufacturers to build the drain tube into the handles of the ladder on the truck.
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Problems with obstruction and icing on tubes that have led to spills in the past involved companies that had internal drains only 1.5 inches in diameter, instead of the more usual 1.75 to 2.0 inch holes.
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Shutting off internal drains by placing a rubber plug available from any hardware store is an easier fix during winter months, White suggests.
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Sentinel runs a fiberglass rod through the drains to ensure they?re clear and then uses a flashlight to inspect each one. ������
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�It was only a few years ago that ConocoPhillips required its own common carrier fleet to convert its vehicles from external to internal drains.
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?The marketing people wanted the tubes to be internal so that the back of the trailer would be clear and not in the way of any advertising on the truck,? White said. ?So we put the ladders at the front of the trailer and the drains in the back compartment, one on each side of the vehicle.?
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It is not known how many marketers or carriers use trucks with internal tubes but White said it could be 3% to 4% of the truck population. Convenience store chains and other marketers who use the back of their vehicles for advertising may be among those using trucks fitted with internal tubes, he added.
?Carole Donoghue
Content Subject: Petroleum Retailing
Formatted Article Date: November 30, 2011
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