This study is intended to come up with potential alternatives for present crude oil storage resulting in benefits to the oil business based on developments in- and outside the storage and oil industry. In order to accomplish realistic storage alternatives, first an inventory of existing problems is drawn up. Used information is obtained from public domain, literature, tank courses, interviews and meetings with Shell experts, a Shell internal-refinery enquiry, simulation and a site visit to one of Shell’s main refineries Pernis in The Netherlands. Based on this inventory the main drawbacks of the traditional storage tanks are defined. Subsequently conceptual, out of the box, alternatives to solve the observed problems are generated and gathered. Next several tank specialists participated in the concept assessment: Health, Safety and Environment consultant, oil-movement technologist, tank engineer, storage and integrity engineer and a structural tank engineer. From all evaluated concepts, the underground storage in a caisson structure was assessed as one of the promising solutions, as it results in the reduction of: • The Health, Safety and Environmental risks. • The risk of financial losses due to failure. • The costs related to construction and inspection & maintenance. • The spatial use. A potential alternative for present crude oil storage tanks, which reduces the related, • Health, Safety and Environmental risks (HSE). • Risk of financial losses due to tank failure. • Costs for tank inspection & maintenance. • Tank spatial use. Can only be made financially feasible by combining crude oil storage with other functionalities, e.g. a quay structure and a container on- and offloading terminal. Traditional crude oil tank design, including the expected design enhancements for the future, still is a good alternative on the condition that tank inspection and maintenance is carried out thoroughly