API TES study guide
API TES · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The API Tank Entry Supervisor Certification (TES) is an individual certification offered within the American Petroleum Institute's Individual Certification Programs (ICP), the same certification family that sits alongside API's standards, training, and assessment offerings under Global Industry Services. The credential is intended for personnel who supervise entry into petroleum storage tanks - the people responsible for authorizing entry, controlling the work, and keeping entrants safe during inspection, repair, and cleaning operations. Because the exam's published domains split evenly, preparation should be balanced: roughly half of the content addresses tank entry supervision (entry decisions, hazard evaluation, permitting, attendant and entrant control, rescue readiness, and documentation) and half addresses tank cleaning and entry safety practices (isolation and lockout, atmosphere testing, ventilation, PPE, and safe work procedures around confined spaces). Candidates typically prepare by studying the applicable API tank inspection, cleaning, and safe-entry standards alongside their own site permit and confined-space programs, then practicing scenario-based judgment questions rather than memorizing definitions. The API TES study guide has 2 sections and about 684 words.
01Tank Entry Supervision: Roles, Permits, and Attendant Duties
A tank entry supervisor exists to make sure no one enters a permit-required confined space until the hazards are identified, controlled, and continuously watched - and to stop the job the moment those conditions break down. Permit-required confined space (PRCS): a space large enough to enter, with limited entry/egress, not designed for continuous occupancy, and containing (or potentially containing) a hazardous atmosphere, engulfment, entrapment, or other serious hazard.
367 words, about 2 min02Tank Cleaning and Entry Safety Practices: Isolation, Testing, and Ventilation
Cleaning and entry follow a fixed order: isolate, drain, clean, ventilate, test, then enter - and re-test continuously while inside. Isolation: blank/blind or double block-and-bleed all product, steam, water, and gas lines; lock out energy sources including mixers and agitators.
317 words, about 2 min