M. MCMAHON, LEC Global, Boulder, Colorado (U.S.)
Oil and gas facilities, including refineries, produced water/saltwater disposal (SWD) facilities, upstream/midstream operations and petrochemical plants are among the most vulnerable to fires, explosions and operational disruptions caused by direct lightning strikes and their secondary effects. Even in areas with infrequent thunderstorms, severe lightning events can still occur, leading to catastrophic damage, injury, downtime, fines and negative impacts to corporate reputation.
When this occurs, the financial consequences can be devastating. In industrial settings, a single strike can ignite fires, destroy valuable assets and lead to costly downtime and environmental damage. This is leading many oil and gas facilities to adopt lightning defense strategies designed to protect structures, equipment and personnel. However, with many technological advances since the invention of the Franklin lightning rod more than 250 yrs ago, navigating the maze of potential lightning protection solutions can be daunting.
Lightning defense is a specialized body of knowledge that has been accumulating for > 200 yrs. Broadly speaking, lightning defense encompasses two key approaches: lightning protection and lightning avoidance, such as charge transfer technologies. Proper grounding and surge protection are also critical.
Due to the wide range of available technologies, mounting an effective defense against lightning-related threats typically requires a tailored strategy that integrates multiple solutions, each having its own specific purpose for minimizing damage or avoiding it altogether. The optimal combination depends on the specific site conditions and the nature of the operation. To navigate this complexity effectively, it is essential to engage qualified lightning protection experts who can conduct thorough site evaluations, identify and prioritize vulnerabilities, and recommend appropriate protection solutions.
Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all solution, lightning protection and mitigation recommendations should be tailored to a facility’s unique vulnerabilities, whether that involves bonding solutions for storage tanks, direct strike avoidance, secondary damage caused by a nearby strike or grounding improvements.
Vulnerabilities exposed. Oil and gas facilities are particularly vulnerable to lightning strikes due to several interrelated factors. Sites are often located in open or elevated areas, such as flat plains or offshore platforms, which naturally increases their exposure to lightning. The presence of tall steel structures, including flare stacks, drilling rigs and communications towers further heightens the risk, as these installations are more likely to attract electrical discharges.
Compounding the hazard is the presence of flammable gases and liquids, which can create explosive atmospheres, particularly around storage tanks, vents or during transfer operations. A lightning strike in such conditions can easily trigger fires or explosions.
Today’s oil and gas operations also rely on complex electrical and control systems that are sensitive to voltage surges. Even indirect lightning strikes up to a mile away can result in equipment failure or operational disruption.
At oil and gas facilities, one of the most immediate consequences is operational downtime: even a momentary process upset can cause cascading issues. In a refinery, for instance, a single unplanned interruption can mean a multi-day restart process, resulting in significant financial losses, wasted product and operational headaches. Facilities may also incur significant repair and replacement costs due to infrastructure damage.
Safety is another major driver for investment in lightning protection. Lightning strikes or their secondary effects can result in serious injuries to plant personnel. Such incidents not only endanger lives but also expose companies to legal liability and potential litigation.
Reputational damage is an often overlooked but impactful risk. Frequent lightning-related disruptions can erode public trust, particularly if service delivery or product quality is compromised.
Even when a direct strike is avoided or successfully mitigated, the residual effects—such as earth currents, atmospheric transients, secondary arcing, electromagnetic pulses and ground potential rise—can severely degrade system components. These secondary effects can result in equipment failure, operational downtime, or even false and erroneous system behavior.
For these reasons, comprehensive lightning protection systems are critical in safeguarding oil and gas facilities from structural damage, catastrophic safety incidents, unplanned downtime and expensive process restarts.
Protecting facilities. The appropriate combination of solutions can only be determined through a comprehensive evaluation of each facility’s current protection measures, grounding systems and overall risk exposure. Understanding a facility’s past issues, vulnerabilities and protection goals helps determine whether the solution should focus on grounding enhancements, surge protection, direct strike avoidance, secondary damage from a nearby strike or a combination of all three.
By conducting a thorough site assessment, the author’s company helps facilities identify vulnerabilities and implement customized mitigation strategies, whether that means improving grounding, adding targeted surge protection or implementing direct strike mitigation solutions.
Prevention is the best defense. The most effective defense is to prevent a lightning strike from occurring. This is a far superior solution than a lightning rod-based system that attracts lightning to the protected site and then attempts to manage the strike.
Lightning occurs when the difference in potential between storm clouds and the earth reaches a critical level, triggering an electrical discharge. For lightning to strike, it requires a connection between a downward leader from the cloud and an upward streamer from the ground. The author’s company’s dissipation array systema (DAS) is designed to prevent direct lightning strikes within its designated protection area by lowering the electric field to levels below those required for lightning to form. A DAS prevents these connections by using point discharge technology (FIG. 1), which neutralizes the charge differential before a strike can occur. Through a system of well-grounded points, a DAS facilitates the exchange of ions between the air and the ground, disrupting the conditions necessary for a lightning strike.
A DAS can be integrated with a wide range of structures, including buildings, towers, tanks and stacks. Since its inception, > 3,500 DAS installations have been deployed worldwide, accumulating more than 77,000 system years of effective performance.
The effectiveness of a DAS is enhanced when combined with a comprehensive lightning protection system that includes a low-impedance grounding system, transient voltage surge suppression and modular strike prevention devices. Together, these components ensure optimal protection against both direct strikes and secondary electrical surges.
Storage tank fires. At oil and gas facilities, particularly at storage terminals and refineries, one of the most significant and well-documented risks is oil storage tank fires. The most common type of fire in floating roof tanks is a seal fire, which results from a lightning-induced spark or a buildup of static charge igniting vapors near the tank’s rim seal. While these fires can typically be extinguished quickly with a foam system, the consequences remain significant. The affected tank must be taken offline, cleaned and the seals must be replaced, creating downtime and operational disruption for the terminal. Larger tank fires are less common but can burn for days, causing severe damage and making recovery much more difficult.
Floating roof tanks are particularly susceptible to fires resulting from lightning strikes. Electrical currents from such strikes can traverse the tank's shell and roof, potentially arcing across the roof-shell interface. This arcing can ignite flammable vapors present near the floating roof seal, leading to catastrophic fires. Traditional bonding methods such as metal strips, known as shunts, have proven unreliable due to factors like corrosion, misalignment and inherent design flaws, thereby increasing the risk of sustained arcs.
Proper bonding and grounding solutions are critical for prevention. As an example, the author’s company’s retractable grounding assemblyb (RGA) is an advanced lightning protection device to safeguard floating roof storage tanks from lightning-induced fires. This patented and ATEX-approved solution ensures a permanent, low-impedance bond between the tank’s floating roof and shell, preventing dangerous arcing and subsequent ignition of flammable vapors (FIG. 2).
The RGA conforms to both API 545 and NFPA 780 recommendations and criteria for a bypass conductor. API 545, issued by the American Petroleum Institute (API), addresses the risk of ignition caused by lightning strikes, particularly for aboveground storage tanks used in the oil and gas industry.
Even non-metallic and internally lined storage tanks can accumulate static electricity during regular operations. This accumulation poses a significant risk, as static discharge or external factors like nearby lightning strikes can ignite flammable vapors within the tank, leading to catastrophic events. An in-tank potential equalizer (IPE) can be submerged in the liquid in the tank to provide a conductive path for the charge accumulated on the fluid to safely dissipate to the ground. The IPE solution is particularly suited to well sites or SWD sites where small non-conductive tanks are commonly used to manage and dispose of produced water, a byproduct of oil and natural gas extraction that typically contains high concentrations of salt, hydrocarbons, heavy metals and other impurities.
Expertise in installation. While the proper combination of component technologies is crucial, having a single source oversee the installation of these systems can also be a key aspect of effective implementation.
Traditional lightning protection methods typically involve engaging separate vendors for system design, material procurement and installation. This fragmented approach often results in miscommunication, extended project timelines and increased costs. A turnkey provider that consolidates all project phases under a single expert team ensures unified accountability, accelerates execution through streamlined coordination, improves system performance through integrated component design and lowers overall costs by reducing potential errors, rework and inefficiencies caused by misaligned vendor efforts.
Takeaways. Considering the risks posed by lightning-related events, oil and gas facilities cannot afford to rely on outdated or piecemeal lightning protection strategies. As operations become more complex and the consequences of downtime more severe, the need for a site-specific lightning protection strategy is imperative. Technological advancements now offer a range of solutions far beyond traditional methods, but selecting the right combination requires deep expertise and an understanding of each facility’s unique vulnerabilities.
To ensure maximum safety, reliability and operational continuity, facilities are strongly encouraged to schedule a professional site assessment. A tailored evaluation by qualified experts can uncover hidden risks, assess the effectiveness of existing systems and guide the implementation of integrated lightning protection strategies. This proactive step not only safeguards critical infrastructure and personnel but also helps prevent costly disruptions and reinforces a facility’s long-term resilience against lightning-related threats. HP
NOTE
a LEC’s Dissipation Array System®
b LEC’s Retractable Grounding Assembly®
Mike McMahon is the Chief Executive Officer at Lightning Eliminators & Consultants Inc. (LEC), a leading provider of integrated lightning protection and lightning prevention products, solutions and services.