Siemens awarded €16 million

The Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group has received an order to supply the complete turnkey electrical equipment and instrumentation for Vopak’s new tank farm in the port of Antwerp.

The tank farm will be built by a consortium comprising Siemens and Belgian companies Ivensand Cordeel in the framework of an EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) contract. The order is worth €16 million to Siemens.

Vopak is the world’s largest independent tank farm operator and specialises in storage and transport logistics for liquid and gaseous chemicals and petrochemical products. These include fuels, also biofuels, and oleochemicals. The company operates 75 tank farms with a storage capacity of over 20 million cubic metres.

Vopak is expanding its capacities in the port of Antwerp due to the burgeoning market for the storage and shipment of chemical products. The tank farm will be erected on the left bank of the river Schelde in a newly developed industrial park. In the first phase, 60 tanks with a storage capacity of 100,000 cubic metres are being built, operation of which is scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2008. This will be followed by a loading gantry with eight gates for tank trucks or railcars, a main jetty for seagoing vessels, two smaller jetties for coasters and barges, an office building as well as auxiliary buildings for housing technical equipment.

The Siemens scope of supply includes medium-voltage transformers, the low-voltage distribution system, instrumentation, a Simatic PCS7 automation solution, the lighting systems and a CCTV system. In addition, Siemens will integrate equipment from other suppliers such as the steam boiler and the thermal oxidizer. The mechanical equipment for the tank farm will be supplied by Ivens, Antwerp, while the Cordeel group is responsible for the construction work.