Crude oil, chemical and liquid refined product spills at processing, transportation and handling facilities, as well as large oil lightering tankers, are not isolated incidents for the industry. A number of recent events have brought a new awareness to the cost and risk involved in an overfill event. In many of the incidents, the equipment on the tank or vessel designated to help prevent such occurrences is overridden, gets ignored or is in non-working order. In many filling operations and tank terminals, no automated emergency shutoff receipt valves, high level alarms or other preventive instruments and sensors are even installed. Terminal operations personnel have often played a role by being "over-alarmed', undertrained or relying on instruments that should have been operable, but were not. The consequences of these spills have been, in many cases, disastrous to corporate assets and fatal to civilian and facility personnel. This article looks at how most of these overfill events could have been averted or at least significantly mitigated with a Safety Instrumented System (SIS).
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