scholarly journals Advanced Leak Detection and Quantification of Methane Emissions Using sUAS

Drones ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Derek Hollenbeck ◽  
Demitrius Zulevic ◽  
Yangquan Chen
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Near Field ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Leak Detection ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Unmanned Aircraft ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
Detection Techniques

Detecting and quantifying methane emissions is gaining an increasingly vital role in mitigating emissions for the oil and gas industry through early detection and repair and will aide our understanding of how emissions in natural ecosystems are playing a role in the global carbon cycle and its impact on the climate. Traditional methods of measuring and quantifying emissions utilize chamber methods, bagging individual equipment, or require the release of a tracer gas. Advanced leak detection techniques have been developed over the past few years, utilizing technologies, such as optical gas imaging, mobile surveyors equipped with sensitive cavity ring down spectroscopy (CRDS), and manned aircraft and satellite approaches. More recently, sUAS-based approaches have been developed to provide, in some ways, cheaper alternatives that also offer sensing advantages to traditional methods, including not being constrained to roadways and being able to access class G airspace (0–400 ft) where manned aviation cannot travel. This work looks at reviewing methods of quantifying methane emissions that can be, or are, carried out using small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) as well as traditional methods to provide a clear comparison for future practitioners. This includes the current limitations, capabilities, assumptions, and survey details. The suggested technique for LDAQ depends on the desired accuracy and is a function of the survey time and survey distance. Based on the complexity and precision, the most promising sUAS methods are the near-field Gaussian plume inversion (NGI) and the vertical flux plane (VFP), which have comparable accuracy to those found in conventional state-of-the-art methods.

Interpreters and near-field exploration: The role of leadership, culture, and organizational impedance contrasts

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 5M-12M ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Tobias
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Development ◽  
Lean Manufacturing ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Near Field ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Organizational Boundaries ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Multidisciplinary Study ◽  
The Many

Four years ago, several visionaries from SEG and AAPG collaborated to create Interpretation, a journal that serves the unique community of integrated interpretation. As the late R. Randy Ray wrote at the time, “It marks a historic recognition that geology and geophysics are intertwined at the core.” Indeed, this core community drives the exploration engine that powers the oil and gas industry through the multidisciplinary study of the petroleum system. The time has come for this same community to apply its considerable intellectual and operational acumen to optimizing another system that is rarely recognized as such: near-field exploration. Unlike “pure” conventional exploration, near-field exploration tends to be much more organizationally complex. Exploration functions need to deal with producing assets. Offices set in different cultures and separated by many time zones need to work together flawlessly. Engineering-centric dynamic geocellular models need to mesh with map-based static descriptions of the earth. Most importantly, a culture of value assurance needs to be balanced with a spirit of exploration that demands a culture of creativity and risk taking. These compartmentalized and layered oil and gas organizations share one important characteristic with the heterogeneous earth: each component can be considered to have its own unique impedance. As all interpreters know, elastic impedance contrasts associated with geological heterogeneity give rise to reflected seismic signals, the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of which are our bread and butter. Yet while organizational boundaries also impede the free flow of energy (in the form of knowledge/information, processes, workflows, etc.), there is little awareness that signals reflected from organizational impedance contrasts can be studied and ultimately inverted to understand and optimize various organizational components. Taken together, the heterogeneous environment known as near-field exploration can be modeled as a complex arrangement of different types of impedances, with (usually unmonitored) signals emanating from the many impedance contrasts. The monitoring, processing, and interpretation of these organizational signals are shown to fit well into the Shewhart cycle of plan-do-check-act, something that our engineering colleagues use regularly in their lean manufacturing processes. This paper introduces what for many will be a new paradigm for the organizational development of companies focused on near-infrastructure exploration. And yet for most interpreters reading this, it will seem “old hat.” Our community has been unmasking the geology associated with boundary reflections for almost a century. The time has come to improve the organizations within which we toil by applying our skills to the study of organizational impedance contrasts.

scholarly journals Storage, Handling and Safety Procedure for Fuel in Oil & Gas Industry

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1031-1032
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Article Deal ◽  
Safety Precaution ◽  
The Government ◽  
Oil Gas ◽  
And Storage ◽  
Safety Procedures

After Finding the oil & gas occurrences in the subsurface using various methods and tools that were available in Upstream Oil and Gas Industry. Further reaching the reservoir and taking out the Oil & Gas from those to the surface the fuel have to transport and store to get purify for supply to the required user. Here the Midstream peoples plays a vital role in it. The drilled Oil and Gas have to transport from the occurrence to the destination Refinery so it have to be planned well and many safety procedure have to be done to avoid any problem in those transportation and after transporting to the destination it must be maintained in perfect temperature condition and perfect storage tanks either above the ground or the underground .Again there are some safety procedures to be followed which were approved by the Government safety norms. This article deal about the process and procedures in transporting and storage of fuels from upstream to midstream to downstream .Also about the safety precaution and procedure to be followed to have a safe storage and handling.

Monitoring of Methane Emissions in Oil and Gas from Space: Matching Needs with Satellite System Capability, and Advantages of High Resolution Monitoring

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Francois Gauthier
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Detection Threshold ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Satellite System ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Satellite Systems ◽  
The World

Abstract Satellites are a powerful tool in monitoring methane emissions around the world. In the last five years, many new systems have been both announced and deployed, each with different capabilities and designed for a specific purpose. With an increase in options also comes confusion as to how these systems can and should be used, especially in meeting the needs of the oil and gas industry. This paper will examine the different satellite systems available and explain what information they are best suited to provide. The performance parameters of several current and future satellite systems will be presented and supported with recent examples when available. For example, the importance of factors like frequency of revisit, detection threshold, and spatial resolution will be discussed and contrasted with the needs of the oil and gas industry in gaining a more complete understanding of its methane emissions and enabling action to mitigate them. Results from GHGSat's second generation of high-resolution satellites displaying measurements of methane plumes at oil and gas facilities around the world will be presented to demonstrate some of the advantages of the technology. These two satellites, GHGSat-C1 and C2 (Iris and Hugo), were launched in September 2020 and January 2021 respectively and have started delivering a tenfold improvement in performance after incorporating the lessons learned from their predecessor, GHGSat's demonstration satellite Claire. Finally, the ability of these systems to work together and complement each other's capabilities to provide actionable insight to the oil and gas industry will be discussed.

Digitalizing and Geo-Enabling Observation Cards to Improve Hazard Mitigation and Better Risk Assessment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. E. Paramitha
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Mobile Application ◽  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Hazard Mitigation ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Field Workers

Health, safety, and environment (HSE) play a vital role and sits at the highest pedestal in the oil and gas industry. It should therefore be the top priority in the oil and gas industry as this function enables a reduction in potential hazards, including injuries, fatalities, damage to facilities, and occupational safety. Field workers typically use observation cards to report the potential hazards or discrepancies discovered in the field. However, in some companies, reporting is still done manually by filling out the observation cards in handwritten paper form and then manually submitted to the HSE supervisor. The supervisor will receive all the forms, input the data into spreadsheets, analyze the data, then make decisions to mitigate the hazard(s). These workflows are certainly time-consuming and prone to errors. Therefore, this paper aims to simplify these workflows by enabling digital system of records and geospatial information on HSE observation. Geographic Information System (GIS) form-based mobile application that integrates object location, mobile phone camera, and textual information was developed. In this paper, a GIS digital-based form that connects spatial data with attribute data is presented. Field workers can use this form to report any potential hazards and acquired pictures of evidence using mobile devices. The report will be transmitted to the server database through a web service, being visualized and analyzed to alert the potential hazards for pro-active action. In addition, this GIS form-based mobile application can also be used in a web-based application for office workers. This application will reduce errors while filling the observation cards or adding the data to sheets manually. It also time-efficient since the submitted reports can be monitored in real-time, and the follow-up action can be executed sooner. This will provide easier accessibility and better experience of hazard reporting anytime and anywhere, improve hazard mitigation, and better risk assessment.

Application of Long Endurance UAS for Top-Down Methane Emission Measurements of Oil and Gas Facilities in an Offshore Environment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Alexander Tavner ◽  
Daniel Francis Touzel ◽  
Brendan James Smith
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Unmanned Aircraft ◽  
Measurement Technology ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
Facility Level ◽  
Individual Asset

Abstract Oil & gas (O&G) operators are increasingly focused on decarbonization and reaching net-zero carbon emissions. The O&G industry seeks to minimise methane emissions. Verification of estimated emissions using top down measurement methods represents a critical component of this effort. A novel approach to operationalizing top-down emissions surveys was developed and demonstrated, leveraging expertise in unmanned vehicle application, innovative methane emissions measurement technology, and an O&G industry collaborator. The inspection technique utilizes a fixed-wing unmanned aircraft to perform a remote offshore asset inspection while safely launching and recovering onshore. This method enables the collection of many tens of thousands individual point methane concentration measurements and affords the ability to resolve facility-level methane emissions and in conjunction with appropriate environmental conditions information, derive an accurate emission rate for an individual asset, while accounting for background fluctuation and potential upwind sources.The unmanned aircraft does not require any crew or equipment to be taken offshore or make modifications to the asset, thus allowing inspections to be performed with minimum impact to facility operations. This work overcame significant regulatory hurdles to fly long distance unmanned aircraft in congested airspace, developed detailed operational procedures and demonstrated the safety of the technique to both the O&G and aviation community, and the effectiveness of the measurement technology. The work demonstrated the suitability of the technique for operationalisation for routine measurement programmes.

Environmental Defense Fund Permian Basin Campaign: a science and advocacy-based approach to quantify and mitigate methane emissions from the oil and gas industry

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lyon ◽  
Mark Omara ◽  
Ritesh Gautam ◽  
Kate Roberts ◽  
Beth Trask ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Atmospheric Transport ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Test Method ◽  
State University ◽  
Permian Basin ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
Small Clusters

<p>The Permian Basin in west Texas and southeast New Mexico (United States) is one of the most productive oil and gas (O&G) basins in the world, but little methane emissions data have been collected from the region.  Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is leading a year-long science and advocacy campaign to measure O&G methane emissions in the Permian Basin and quickly communicate the data to stakeholders including the public and O&G operators to facilitate emission reductions. EDF and our scientific partners are using three primary approaches to repeatedly quantify emissions at different spatial scales during the campaign. Pennsylvania State University is estimating regional methane emissions on a quarterly basis with atmospheric transport modeling of data collected from a network of five tower-based instruments. University of Wyoming is deploying a mobile laboratory on public roads to measure site-level emissions of methane and volatile organic compounds with EPA Other Test Method 33A and the transect approach.  Scientific Aviation is performing aerial mass balance flights to quantify emissions from small clusters of sites, gridded areas, and larger regions.  Additionally, EDF is collaborating with several groups using remote sensing approaches to quantify methane emissions including TROPOMI, AVIRIS-NG, GAO, and MethaneAIR.  Emissions data including site identities will be published on a custom public website as quickly as possible to educate stakeholders about the magnitude of emissions and facilitate the mitigation of detected emission sources. Following the campaign, data will be analyzed to understand patterns and trends in emissions.  Furthermore, we will discuss the potential for implementing similar monitoring approaches in other O&G basins to provide scientifically-rigorous, actionable data that supports effective mitigation of methane emissions.</p>

Isotopic characterisation of methane emissions from oil and gas operation in Romania

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malika Menoud ◽  
Carina van der Veen ◽  
Hossein Maazallahi ◽  
Julianne Fernandez ◽  
Piotr Korben ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Measurement Data ◽  
Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Methane Emissions ◽  
Emission Rates

<p>Reducing methane emissions is an important goal of climate change mitigation policies. Recent studies focused on emissions from oil and gas industry, because fixing gas leaks presents a "no-regret" mitigation solution. Yet, uncertainties regarding the fossil fuel emission rates and locations, as well as temporal and spatial variability, are still large for individual source processes, in particular in regions without regular measurements. The Romanian Methane Emissions from Oil and gas (ROMEO) project brought 13 research teams to Romania in order to quantify emissions from this sector. Methane stable isotopes are widely used for source characterisation, but measurement data is lacking from many important geographical locations, such as Eastern Europe. </p><p>A total of 380 air samples were collected in urban areas and around oil and gas extraction sites, from ground level vehicles and from an aircraft. There were measured for δ<sup>13</sup>C-CH<sub>4</sub> and δD-CH<sub>4</sub> using a continuous flow isotope ratio mass spectrometry (CF-IRMS) system. The results were analysed using the Keeling plot approach to derive source signatures at each sampled site. The source signatures obtained for 76 individual oil and gas operation sites range from -70.5 to -22.4 ‰ V-PDB, and from -252 to -144‰ V-SMOW, for δ<sup>13</sup>C and δD respectively. They show a large heterogeneity in δ<sup>13</sup>C, and more regularity in δD values. Variations are affected by the maturity of hydrocarbon deposits, and by different contributions from microbial and thermogenic gas. We will present how the signatures measured at the surface relate to the signatures found for larger plumes sampled from the aircraft. The results of the campaign in Bucharest city reveal a larger contribution from the waste system than fossil fuel fugitive emissions. </p><p>The isotopic characterisation of methane emissions in this region will help to constrain the methane budget on a regional scale, and to improve national inventories.</p>

Use of Bowties for Pipeline Safety Management

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn Pettitt ◽  
Philip Pennicott
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
High Reliability ◽  
Performance Standards ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Pipeline System ◽  
Safety Critical ◽  
Training Programmes

Bowtie diagrams have become a widely-used method for demonstrating the relationship between the causes and consequences of hazardous events following the identification of Major Accident Hazards (MAHs). They are particularly useful for illustrating how safeguarding measures protect against particular threats or mitigate the various consequences of an incident. Bowtie diagrams have been widely used in a range of industries for over twenty years and are widespread in the upstream oil and gas industry, as well as other high hazard industries such as mining and nuclear. Bowtie diagrams are used for a range of purposes. At their simplest, they provide an overview of the measures in place to prevent and mitigate hazardous events, and as such are valuable additions to training programmes. A bowtie diagram provides an excellent platform to show regulatory authorities, trainees and new employees the various threats to a pipeline system, and what barriers are in place to prevent and control major accidents, such that the risks are as low as reasonably practicable. The bowtie process may be used during design, construction, operations and decommissioning. The bowtie for construction is different to that for design and operations, being more to do with occupational safety rather that loss of containment. However, the construction bowtie diagram still plays a vital role in minimising risk. Whilst the typical failure mechanisms for pipelines are generally well-established during operations, bowties have a key role in informing senior management of the measures in place to reduce risk. Furthermore, a large proportion of major accidents may occur at above ground installations (AGIs), and bowtie diagrams provide a mechanism to help management in the protection of personnel and potentially of nearby populations. For both cross-country pipelines and AGIs, the effectiveness of each barrier can be established to ensure that the risk of loss of containment is minimised. More detailed bowties may be used to assist in identifying safety critical elements (SCEs) or safety critical tasks; developing performance standards and defining process safety performance indicators. Often, the hardware shown by the barriers may be considered as SCEs, particularly in the case of effective barriers, such as vibration detection along the right-of-way (RoW) (prevention) or gas detection at AGIs (recovery). Where such barriers are defined as key to a major threat, the bowtie diagram illustrates the importance of good maintenance systems to ensure that the barriers have a high reliability. Thus, by defining the SCEs in a logical manner, bowties may be a key element in managing the risk from a pipeline system.

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