From 2007 to 2022, Chevron's Mid-Continent Business Unit (MCBU) in Midland, Texas, experienced several challenges in establishing and implementing an effective internal coating management strategy for the upstream, aboveground storage tanks (ASTs) built to American Petroleum Institution (API) Specification 12F (1). In this journey, Chevron has addressed and resolved the opportunities shared in this Paper and listed below to enable sustainable and reliable life of coating systems applied to ASTs working in produced water and crude oil service (upstream sector):
• issues around legacy specifications of tanks acquired from other owners
• establishing the right coating systems for tanks internal surfaces
• quality issues with coatings on newly constructed tanks ordered from local manufacturers
• having multiple contracts for AST coatings field repairs
• field hot work repairs of tank floors with a foam base
The solutions that Chevron MCBU has implemented to address the issues above might be used by others to leverage from Chevron's experience and practices to improve their AST coating management strategies.
The Permian Basin is a shale sedimentary basin approximately 250 miles wide and 300 miles long. It is located in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Chevron has been active in the Permian Basin through its legacy companies since the early 1920s. Throughout its presence in the Permian Basin area and being an active operator and developer, Chevron had several acquisitions of land lots and associated plants and facilities. This Paper shares opportunities and its solutions that Chevron MCBU developed when dealing with internal coatings on legacy and new tanks built to API 12F Specification (i.e., steel tanks with maximum internal design pressure 0.5 psi, and maximum capacity of 750 barrels) to store produced water and crude oil products. Chevron MCBU owns and operates approximately 2,200 API 12F tanks in the Permian Basin area which is about 99% of MCBU's total tank inventory.
