Regulation is a market driver for the analytical technologies in the oil and gas industry. In August, the US EPA introduced a proposed rule on emission standards for methane and other volatile organic compounds in the oil and natural gas sector (see IBO 8/31/15).

Leaks, or fugitive emissions, are a major source of emissions in the industry. In its “2014 Greenhouse Inventory,” the EPA estimated 332,662 t of potential methane leak emissions from gas production, 33,681 t from processing and 114,348 t from transmission.

In its new rule, the agency is proposing a requirement that optical gas imaging (OGI) be used to detect leaks at oil and natural gas well sites, natural gas transmission compressor stations, and natural gas production gathering and boosting stations. Owners or operators of these facilities would have to conduct surveys for fugitive emissions within 30 days of starting up if new facilities, or within 30 days after their modification. Any leaks would have to be repaired within 15 days if the repairs would not require shutting down the operation. Otherwise, the leaks would need to be repaired at the next scheduled shutdown.

In a 2014 white paper, the EPA asserted that OGI surveys might be more cost and time efficient in detecting leaks than other technologies that have traditionally been used, such as portable methane analyzers. The agency determined that OGI could increase the number of pieces of equipment viewed per hour for leaks as well as detect leaks from sources other than components being surveyed.

Nonetheless, the EPA is accepting comments on other technologies for detecting and monitoring fugitive methane emissions, acknowledging in its white paper that one limitation of OGI is its inability to quantify emissions. Comments on the rule must be submitted by November 17.

A technology currently used for detecting methane leaks is cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) (see IBO 10/15/09). Picarro employs CRDS in its Surveyor system, which is mobile and can be mounted on a vehicle. The Surveyor measures emissions flux while the vehicle is in operation at driving speed up to 600 ft from the leak source.

Jan Willem Poelmann, senior vice president of Sales & Marketing at Picarro, told IBO that the company is planning on submitting comments to the EPA on using its technology for the new rule. “[T]hat particular system is targeted toward the gas distribution companies, so downstream . . . applications,” he said. “But we are looking at introducing this kind of technology in the upstream environment.” He indicated that the company has experienced a rise in interest in its technology since the proposed rule was announced.

Regarding OGI, Mr. Poelmann commented, “Our view is that it’s a complementary technology. [B]y having a car equipped with this very sensitive CRDS equipment, you can be much more efficient and identify a significant number of leaks quicker than by getting out of the car and walking towards a leak with a handheld device like the OGI. But still,” he said, “it would be good to have the OGI available to help identify the precise location of the leaks that we’ve uncovered and make a measurement there.”

Although the EPA rule does not require quantification of leaking methane emissions, Chris Rella, PhD, Picarro research fellow, indicated that companies have an incentive to use a product like the Picarro Surveyor. “[B]ig leaks [are] a lot of lost product for them,” he said. “So if you have a scalable and efficient way to detect large leaks, that pays for itself.” He continued, “Where there are no people around to smell the leaks, they can get to be very large, and if you don’t know they’re there, you don’t do anything about it.” Furthermore, he said, “[G]reenhouse gas impacts are going to become more and more important, either from a regulatory standpoint or from a public relations standpoint. And so I think being able to quantify that will matter more and more.”

Bryan Willson, PhD, professor of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University and program director at the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), agrees about the importance of quantification. ARPA-E’s Methane Observation Networks with Innovative Technology to Obtain Reductions (MONITOR) program is supporting the development of low-cost systems to detect and measure methane in the oil and natural gas industry.

“[A] quantification-based approach . . . allows companies to prioritize their remediation action on the most significant sources,” Dr. Willson explained. “And also, at the national level, it also gives us an inventory of what’s being emitted from the oil and gas system,” he said.

He told IBO that the $32 million program is supporting 11 technologies. Launched in May, he said, the technologies should be “essentially commercializable” by the end of 2018.

“What we’re working on in the MONITOR program is developing next-generation technologies—going beyond detection and focusing on quantification of methane emissions from production sites,“ he said. “[T]hese are primarily methane measurements systems that are able to detect leakage on a site [and] automatically report leakage rates to a centralized station.”

According to Dr. Willson, it may be possible for some of the technologies to be allowed under the new EPA regulations. As far as the prospect of any of the technologies becoming predominant in the industry, he indicated that several of them had the potential because of variation in how they are operated and the functions they serve.

“We have lots of new technologies available that can dramatically increase our ability to quantify methane emissions,” Dr. Willson concluded. “[W]e will be working with companies and the regulatory community to hopefully get to the point that these technologies will find a way into the work practices of companies, helping [them] to meet their regulatory obligations and reduce methane emissions in a very cost-effective manner.”