Lightning Protection System of Oil Storage Tank In Tropical Country

Lightning phenomenon in Indonesia draws attention of a lot of lightning protection engineer because of its high annual lightning flash density which has the different lightning characteristic compare to sub-tropical lightning. Most of the oil and gas companies adopt the sub-tropical lightning characteristic for the protection of their facilities such as IEC, NFPA, etc. and these standards are applied by companies, consultants and engineers to many structures and facilities in Indonesia. Due to these tropical weather condition, tanks and refinery are not inherently self-protected against lightning direct strikes, they need additional protection to prevent direct strike to tank's metal skin, breather valve at the top of tanks and automatic tank gauging (ATG). Statistically, almost every year the tank is hit by lightning in Indonesia and burn out. An innovation technology calls extended mast terminal (EMT) and free-standing mast (FSM) are used to protect tanks and refinery from lightning direct strikes. A tank was directly hit by lightning and burn out in PT Pertamina EP Asset 5 Sangasanga area at East Kalimantan since in-proper lightning protection system was applied. It has been observed and analyzed that not only need the additional protection but proper additional lightning protection for tanks and refinery is needed.