Decarbonisation Technology - February 2024 Issue

Figure 1 From the well pad to the refinery, the oil, gas, and chemical industry is investing in smart technology to reduce or eliminate GHG emissions from its operations

2027 while ensuring safety for workers in coal mines. These stringent requirements would also obligate all affected operators to submit a report to authorities detailing the sources and levels of methane emissions for operated assets. In addition to this reporting, operators covered by the EU and member state regulations must create a leak detection and repair (LDAR) programme for their assets, conduct periodic LDAR surveys, and repair or replace all components found to be leaking as soon as possible. Also, since imports make up more than 80% of the oil and gas consumed in the EU, it is being proposed that importers of coal, oil, and gas will have to demonstrate that the imported fossil energy lives up to the requirements in the regulation. In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has introduced 40 CFR Part 60, an extensive regulation for offshore and onshore petroleum and natural gas production and transport emissions. Included in that regulation are requirements for reducing harmful air pollution from new and existing oil and natural gas facilities. A significant part of that regulation directly impacts commonly used wellhead technology. It requires all new and existing pneumatic controllers at production wells and storage facilities to have zero carbon emissions. Additional regulations at the state and provincial

level in the US require the replacement of well-gas-driven pneumatic devices and the implementation of automatic pressure management and pilot light monitoring systems. The industry is global, so regulations formulated in Europe and North America ultimately impact technology and infrastructure decisions in all production and processing regions. The response from oil and gas companies has been positive as they recognise that improving the monitoring and control of GHG emissions in their operations is essential to achieve a net zero carbon future (see Figure 1 ). New zero emissions valve technology A significant source of GHG emissions in upstream production was essentially ‘built in’ to standard operating processes at wellheads and oil and gas separator assemblies. It was common to use the naturally pressurised methane produced by oil and gas wells as the media to actuate pneumatic components on wells and separators. In the past, this made economic sense: rather than install and maintain electrically powered compressed air systems at these remote sites (where grid power is at a minimum), gas-actuated pneumatic valves offered a simple solution. However, gas-actuated valves come with an obvious environmental drawback: actuating the valves exhausts the methane into the