The causes that lead to the shrunken cause of dome roof oil tank were analyzed and some practical measures were offered for the prevention of this kind of shrunken, which is valuable about ensuring security of oil tank and protection of external pressure caused destruction in oil tank. With the rapid development of China's oil economy, increased dramatically the demand for large-scale storage and transportation equipment. In the refining and chemical production equipment, the vertical cylindrical steel dome tank is a widely used storage device, it is low cost, easy to operate. Mainly used for storing crude oil, diesel and some chemical products. Tank design pressure is lower, the tank wall, tank top, tank bottom are thinner, and it is easy depression because of large negative pressure inside the tank in the course. Therefore, the correct understanding of the reasons of depression and mastering tank preventive measures, security maintenance for the storage of equipment is very important. In this paper, a refinery in Harbin City, take the dome tank as an example of crude oil and analysis cause of their depression.