The 22 men strong organization led by Mr. Jesus Rivero have a large stock-pile of oil spill response equipment including various types of skimmers and booms for immediate response.

Foilex has with our agent in Venezuela, Petro Control C.A. delivered a total 13 ea. Mini Skimmer, 3 ea. TDS 200 Skimmer and 5 ea. TDS 250 Skimmer Systems to different PDVSA Oil Spill Response bases in Venezuela since 1996.
One of the TDS 250 Skimmers was placed at OLAMAC, Maracaibo Response Team in September 1997.

The TDS 250 Skimmer was apart from traditional oil spill response also meant to be used for slop oil recovery at several tank farms in the local area.

The slop oil ponds are all open and exposed to sunlight which in combination with hot process water often results in high oil temperatures up to 70 °C.

The extremely strong and wear resistant Polyurethane rubber used as standard in the sealing discs for skimmer operation in sea waters temperatures up to 30 °C was aged and lost strength in the 65 °C hot oil/water mixture.

The temperature problem was solved by new type of sealing disc developed in co-operation with OLAMAC and their experience of different materials used in hot crude oil.

The new Sealing disc, made in a special Nitrile rubber, is press vulcanized on to a special designed stainless steel core.

The final testing, in co-operation with OLAMAC and Petro Control C.A., was completed successfully at Ule Tank farm in the end of March this year.
The two pictures above shows a cut-through, (left) of the new sealing disc which Mr. Ramon Matos, (right) is holding after final inspection.