On May 1, a delegation from Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company (Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company (YASREF)) visited the Shunyi Campus for professional technical exchanges. The team conducted in-depth investigations into online inspection technologies for atmospheric storage tanks, with a key focus on in-oil inspection robot technology. He Renyang, Vice President, Wang Jianjun, Chief Researcher of Refining and Chemical Equipment, together with relevant leaders from the Hazardous Chemical Equipment Inspection and Testing Center, the Park Intelligent Inspection and Monitoring Innovation Team, and the International Cooperation Center, received the visiting delegation.
As a world-class refinery jointly invested, constructed and operated by Saudi Aramco and Sinopec in Yanbu Industrial City, Saudi Arabia, Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company (YASREF) has long been faced with technical bottlenecks in the online inspection of large-scale atmospheric storage tank clusters. The refinery has an urgent demand for advanced online inspection and in-oil detection technologies to ensure safe and stable plant operation.
During the visit, our institute conducted on-site demonstrations of self-developed in-oil inspection robots and acoustic emission inspection technologies. Professional researchers systematically introduced core technical solutions, including risk-based inspection for tank clusters and tank group integrity management systems. The Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company (YASREF) delegation consulted in detail on technical implementation schemes, inspection cycles and on-site application standards. Meanwhile, the guests expressed clear cooperation intentions over the institute’s full-series intelligent inspection equipment, including internal pipeline inspection robots, external pipeline inspection robots and inspection drones.
This technical exchange fully showcases the institute’s 15 years of profound technical accumulation in the field of atmospheric storage tank online inspection, as well as independent R&D breakthroughs in new intelligent inspection equipment such as in-oil inspection robots.
Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company (YASREF) serves as a landmark project that aligns China’s Belt and Road Initiative with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. Both parties reached a consensus to actively promote the overseas implementation of the institute’s self-developed atmospheric storage tank online inspection technologies in the Saudi market. The tailored technical solutions will effectively solve practical operational and inspection difficulties faced by overseas refining enterprises.
The cooperation will further accelerate the internationalization of China’s inspection and testing standards and core technologies, contributing reliable Chinese expertise and solutions to the safe, efficient and high-quality development of Belt and Road energy cooperation.
