ILTA Celebrates 50th Anniversary Following Decades of Growth, Advocacy, and Industry Comradery

Washinton D.C., February 2, 2024 - 2024 marks a special celebration for the International Liquid Terminals Association (ILTA) as it is the association’s 50th anniversary. Since 1974, ILTA has worked alongside bulk liquid terminal companies and their supplier partners to educate, advocate, and unify the bulk liquid terminaling industry. This year, we invite you to join us in celebrating ILTA’s history of leadership, growth, and service.

Bulk liquid terminals, as the critical storage and logistics nodes for products like oil and gas, biofuels like ethanol, liquid hydrogen, asphalt, food products like molasses, and beyond, play a significant role in our everyday lives.

Over the decades, ILTA has grown from a small body of only a few members to today representing over seventy terminal companies and three hundred supplier companies, from small facilities with only a few terminal tanks to multicontinental organizations employing thousands across the globe. Our annual conference and trade show has grown to be the industry’s leading convention, bringing together thousands in the industry to share their ideas and learn with one another. Likewise, our biannual committee meetings and annual Terminal Operating Practices Symposium offer further opportunities for the industry to grow.

As the bulk liquid industries advocate association to lawmakers and federal agencies, ILTA has earned meaningful victories for its membership. In the last few years, ILTA has:

• Challenged railroads' ability to impose demurrage fees on terminals, ultimately preventing the industry from incurring tens of millions of dollars in unjust charges each year, following a favorable ruling from the Surface Transportation Board.
• Enabled terminal companies offering butane/pentane blending services to continue operating under reasonable Process Safety management requirements, averting installation costs of $300,000 per facility, thanks to a favorable ruling from OSHA.
• Successfully delayed overly burdensome regulations mandating biometric Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) readers by over a decade. This has allowed time for facility redesignations and constructive dialogue with the U.S. Coast Guard, thus preventing millions of dollars in security installation costs.
• Significantly reduced the frequency of required out-of-service periods through the expanded applicability of the New Source Performance Standards “Kb” tank rule, leading to savings of nearly $100,000 lost revenue per tank. This translates to hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the industry.

Looking ahead, ILTA Interim-President Leakhena Swett is excited about the association’s direction moving forward: “I am delighted to serve alongside a dedicated team and passionate membership, all working together to serve this critical industry. Watching ILTA grow during my five years here and seeing the impact of our efforts at our in-person events demonstrates that we have the positive momentum needed to grow our team, our conference, and our advocacy events even further.”