July 2018

90 91 Fahr enheit. Due to fracking in areas such as North Dakota and Pennsylvania/Ohio, more light oils and gases are being extracted from the ground. Butane and propane from these fields are stored in large, high pressure spheres, some at 80 feet in diam- eter, using steel two inches thick. And then there are the smaller pressure vessels built as one piece in the shop. These can be as small as a propane tank used with backyard grilling. If you want the propane tank refilled, you go to a place that has a large propane tank - what industry often terms a ‘bullet tank.’ That’s a high pressure vessel.” Another membership group is comprised of pipe fabricators. “The pipe is fabricated from steel coil or plate via a spiral-weld process, some pipe as great as 10–15’ in diameter.We’re the Association that represents steel pipe for the industry,” Geyer states. “There’s plastic pipe, concrete pipe, ductile iron pipe - we’re steel pipe. So, one of the things the potable water industry looks to us for is to pro- vide education through seminars and webinars, to consulting engineers, and to buyers –which might THE STEEL TANK INSTITUTE/STEEL PLATE FABRICATORS ASSOCIATION include municipalities, more likely, water districts –on the benefit and use of steel over other mate- rials. Also, these pipe fabricators will see a spec- ification that a consulting engineer has written that the fabricator must be certified by the Steel Plate Fabricators Association, which is us. So, in order for them to get that business, they have to be certified by us. That’s a reason for them to join and remain in the Association.” Katie Bruce, STI/SPFA’s Communications Man- ager, explains how membership works for the shop fabricated tank section. “Those fabricators are primarily producing fuel storage tanks,” she notes. “We have developed and written standards for those tanks, and if anyone wants to manufac- ture a tank to our standards, they’re required to join the Association, first. So, companies in that sector tend to come to us and say for example, ‘I want to build a Fireguard tank.What do I have to do?’Well, one of the things they have to do is join the Association.” “We license the fabricator to build about ten different technologies; all of them have our specifications which they have to build to,” Geyer adds. “Then, organizations like the Environmen- tal Protection Agency will reference them; the National Fire Protection Association– they refer- ence our standards and they become a minimum requirement.With that license, there’s our quality control arm that gets involved.We have a full- time Quality Control Director and he contracts a dozen inspectors to go into our members’ shops to randomly do an inspection to verify that they’re building tanks to our standards.” More than 450,000 shop-fabricated storage tanks have been built under the STI label. “That whole licensing program is a big deal,” Geyer continues. “It’s kind of like a Good Housekeeping