how can i heat a 500,000 gallon tank of oil? Natural gas and eletricity are available?

Answer 1

any gas-fired heaters for oil tanks need to be remote, and use a seperate medium to actually heat the oil. You don't want an open flame too close to that much oil. I have seen this done with a steam jacket heater, where the steam flows through pipes that surround the tank. This method can be thermostatically controlled and have emergency shutoffs to prevent the steam from overheating the oil

Electric tank heaters will also do the job, provided that you don't need to keep the temperature very high, and you don't mind the higher cost of running the heater.

Answer 2

That's a lot of oil to heat..500,000 gallons would require a tank 50 feet in diameter x 35+ feet high.

Do you have to heat the whole tank? If so, try a large , or several large electric or gas fired tank heaters. The electrics are made up to about 200 KW.

See this web site for a start: http://www.chromalox.com/products/packagedsystems/

Answer 3

A safer alternative might be to use electricity to ignite the gas, then use the gas to heat water in a coiled pipe in the tank. The water can be reheated as it is cooled by the oil. Heck of a heat exchanger though...

Answer 4

Use a natural gas boiler and a piping grid for steam to flow through in the tank.

Answer 5

Do you need to heat it all in once, ore just the part you have to use?
But anyway, an easy way of doing it would be to use, self regulating heating cable. You can by it at an specific minimum temperature, and have it connected to your power supply. So in short, wrap it in, in cable, connect it to test, and then insulate.

Answer 6

Don't forget that you have another fuel source availible---the oil itself.