Transport is getting a lot cleaner, in part by using biofuels. At Evos Rotterdam, they are working very hard on that. Evos is one of the largest tank storage companies in Rotterdam that are entirely focused on bioethanol and methanol. With the help of KH Engineering, they are currently working on a large tank-conversion project.
'We are significantly expanding our bioethanol tank storage by, among other things, converting some existing methanol storage tanks to bioethanol storage tanks,' says Johannes Veldt, Commercial Manager at Evos. 'The majority of all this bioethanol is ultimately intended to make car driving cleaner. At the gas station, it is referred to as E10, where number 10 stands for the percentage of bioethanol in the petrol. The demand for renewable fuel will only increase in the coming years. The European blending requirement is rising, which means the demand for bioethanol is rising as well.'
'In-house engineering office'
'For this project, KH Engineering has pretty much become the 'in-house engineering office',' says Operations Manager Peter Arensman. 'We have a lot of expertise about our tanks in-house, but when it comes to design and drawing work and coming up with new concepts, we call on KH Engineering. They took care of the basic and detailed engineering. We needed a good partner for this project and we found one in KH Engineering. It is a good and pleasant collaboration and they think along with us. Also, they remain involved in the project.'
Flexibility
'We know each other so well that it is very easy to brainstorm together,' Peter continues. 'If we have a particular plan, we can think out loud together with the engineers of KH Engineering without this immediately involving high costs. There is no gap between Evos and KH Engineering, we really tackle things together. We can communicate very well and quickly, which makes the cooperation fairly unique for me. I also like their flexibility. For instance, there have been occasions in which we were unable to start with a certain subproject because of delays in the delivery of materials. In consultation with KH Engineering, we then simply choose a project that we can start immediately. For me, that is a good working method.’
Honest advice
Johannes adds: 'They adapt well and also, if necessary, give us honest advice. You have plenty of companies that have a wait-and-see approach or demand that we, as a customer, stick to the exact planning. But if that doesn't work for one reason or another, it's really nice to have an engineering partner like KH Engineering that immediately starts looking at what is still possible. And because they have been active for some time now and have done several projects here, they know our terminal very well. For instance, they warned us that certain transformers would eventually have insufficient capacity to connect more pumps to them. We would undoubtedly have found that out ourselves, but now we knew well in time and we were able to adjust the plans more quickly.'
3D scans
Peter: 'They also made 3D scans for a computer model of our site and the installations. I find that a valuable addition, because it is an excellent visualisation of our site and assets, on which you can also project new expansions or modifications.' The project should be completed around mid-2023, which means Rotterdam will have a lot of additional bioethanol storage capacity by then.
For more information about Evos, please visit: www.evos.eu.