Even the best non man-entry systems will leave residual sludge for final cleaning or it may be that for operational or logistical reasons you have decided to employ man-entry techniques to desludge your tank. In any case, the emphasis should always be to minimise the time that personnel spend within the confined space.

A skilled hydrodozer driver can exceed the productivity of 10 men pushing squeegees thereby reducing the number of personnel required in the confined space and shortening the timescale.

For more than 20 years, Willacy Oil Services manufacturing division has designed and built a wide range of hydraulically driven sludge removal equipment. Utilising feedback from our contracting division, the systems have been continually modified and improved to their present specification.

The industry standard tank desludging system for any credible contracting company would now comprise as a minimum, a manually driven hydrodozer, a hydraulically driven positive displacement pump and a double power pack.

Willacy Oil Services tailor solutions to customer’s specific requirements, adapting standard equipment to solve difficult problems. An example is a low clearance pipetrack cleaning project where man-entry into the confined space was considered an unacceptable risk. In this case a low-level remote controlled hydrodozer was designed and built in-house. This safely and successfully removed the hydrocarbon contamination from below the pipetrack without man-entry.

Remote Control

 Where conditions demand, a standard hydrodozer can be converted into a remote control dozer/dredger for use in tanks where man-entry is prohibited or online in pits and API separator bays (see online sludge removal section), whilst they remain in service.

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