Design of crude oil tank cathodic protection in onshore for 20 years service life

Abstract

Corrosion can cause a gradual and continuous decrease in performance of a structural material used in the oil and gas production process. This decrease in performance can cause some problems, such as personnel safety, plant shutdowns, to a sudden decrease in production levels and structural failure. The potential for corrosion attacks in the oil and gas industry occurs at the production, extraction, refining and storage stages. Billion dollars are spent annually to solve the problem of corrosion in the oil and gas industry. Cathodic protection can be done in two ways, namely by using sacrificial anode cathodic protection (SACP) and impressed current cathodic protection (ICCP). Cathodic protection is considered to be the most effective method of external protection of metal structures with applications of up to 75 percent. This study aims to make a cathodic protection design with ICCP for crude oil tank for improving corrosion resistance in an onshore environment. The results of the ICCP crude oil tank design require 4 tubular MMO titanium anodes with a transformer capacity of 19 kVA and 150 Volt DC voltage. Potential value of tank C before ICCP installation is above -805 mV at all measurement points. This indicates that the tank C is not well corrosion-protected. Potential value of tank C after ICCP installation is far drop below -805 mV at all measurement points. This indicates that the tank C is well protected.