Water Tanks in Gibraltar

The engineers of the seabed-to-surface Engineering, Construction and Services Contractor noted deterioration of the coating and walls of their freshwater storage tanks on board one of their 40+ fleet of ships, and relayed the diagnosis to Formatank.

Formatank understands the importance of a dependable water supply on board an industrial vessel, and the challenges with replacing the tanks, therefore the team were quick to respond within a short timescale.

Issues and success

FTL faced logistical issues with getting materials and labour out to a remote overseas location, especially on the last few days before Christmas. FTL staff had to travel through Customs Border twice daily between Spain & Gibraltar to get to the job.

Additionally, there was very tight access to hatches in the tanks, along with very stringent health and safety arrangements onboard the ship. However, restricted access to the storage tanks didn’t pose an issue for the skilled Formatank team.

A complete internal tank wall cleaning process was carried out, removing the rust and grime build-up. Upon completion of the surface preparation, a full tank wall inspection was carried out to determine the most suitable course of action.

The Formatank 2-coat GRP liner was applied to the entire internal tank wall adopting the hand-lay technique method and using WRAS-approved materials.

Ending and cost

The GRP liner effectively created a new internal tank wall suitable for the storage of drinking water and extended the life expectancy.

Within 48 hours, the water storage tanks were back to ship shape condition and providing the dependable, clean water source once again to the three-hundred vessel crew.

This job cost the client £18K compared to the price of a brand-new tank which would have set them back £100K. For this client, overheads for the boat were £1M per day.

Therefore, without Formatank’s help, there could have been potential heavy losses if the crew didn’t have drinking water.