Here is a picture of one of my heater spears.

I have two of Joe's spears. They're great ! Along with screening in the element you might want to consider a slight modification to the original design which was intended for it to slip in through a 2" bung for those using drums as processors. In a larger opening then the mod I di might be worth considering.
Heat Spear Modified

Yep, Legal's modification is great for a tote with the bigger opening. But, as he said, it won't fit through the 2 inch bung on a drum. You could make a straight one too. I angled it like that so you could still cover the element with a smaller volume of oil (or BD)

Well I haven't heard anything from two different companies that I e-mailed about their heat tapes. But I did build a heat spear. Made it with a 4500 watt element on 110 v, so that should give me 1125 watts, just 25 more watts than my original ice melt heat tapes. Plugged it in about 8 pm and went to bed after about an hours observation to make sure it wasn't going to do something it shouldn't. Came back down the next morning and I could hear gurgling in the tank. I suspected it was setting in water but left it where it was (on the bottom) just to test things out. Left it in until 8 pm to see what was happening at the 24 hour mark. I didn't take any temp. reading because the tank was not any where near equally heated like with the heat tape. The oil (all PHO) was all melted but the difference in temp. was considerable. The other problem I had was that when I pumped the oil over to my drying barrel, you could smell that the oil was burned badly. So bad in fact that it burned your eyes just to be in the same room. Anybody have a problem with their heating spear burning their oil? Or was this oil already burned and I just didn't notice?

lew ward,
This is why I suggested circulating the tote.
The heating element is pretty intense heat that will not convection heat like water.
The tote was probly pretty hot around the element, but cooler away from it. You heard oil boiling off the element. Perhaps water.

Even a fishtank bubbler directly below the spear would've helped circulate the heat. Any way you can make the oil move.

Also the element will melt thru the tote plastic in short order. You say you left it on the bottom.
Did you build the protective cage around it?

I use a spear, wired 220, I also use a clear water pump plumbed into the valve and returning into the top to circulate the oil, I only do this once in a while in the winter, but it works good.

"clear water pump plumbed into the valve and returning into the top to circulate the oil"

If the IBC tote has the camlock, like most, you could make a portable pump and stem to circulate and remove it or attach it in seconds. I dont think the pump uses much electricity.

Weldshop

Yes, I did make a shield around the heating element so that it wouldn't touch anything. Using this type of heating will definitely take some kind of recirculation. The "burned oil" should still make good fuel though shouldn't it?