How a Digital Methane Monitoring Strategy Improves Stakeholder Relationships

The International Energy Agency (IEA) reveals methane emission is one of the largest contributors to global warming today. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with up to 83 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. The oil and gas industry's exploration, production, and transport of fossil fuels is the second largest methane emitter after agriculture.

Today, oil and gas companies are under immense pressure from regulators, investors, customers, and governments to reduce methane emissions in their operations. The industry is now turning to advanced monitoring technologies to achieve rapid and effective methane emission reductions.

This blog looks at how implementing digital monitoring improves stakeholder relationships.

The Challenge of Manual Methane Emission Monitoring Methods

Manual inspection equipment to monitor methane emissions has proved quite ineffective and unreliable. These methods involve workers using handheld thermal cameras to scan equipment during routine inspections. The primary weakness of this technique is that leaks could occur as soon as manual checks are complete. It is also relatively easy to miss unplanned leaks that could go undetected for days, resulting in the continued release of harmful methane into the atmosphere.

How Digital Methane Monitoring Addresses Stakeholder Concerns

Digital methane monitoring technology can effectively reduce methane emissions for the oil and gas industry and prevent the loss of $34bn in flared, vented, and leaked methane. Technologies, such as machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), advanced sensors, and big data analytics, can effectively anticipate and prevent methane leaks in the oil and gas industry while keeping people out of harm's way. The following are some of the valuable benefits of digital methane monitoring technologies:

• Provides real-time data on emissions: Emissions detection sensors strategically installed in various locations in the production plant ensure real-time data monitoring and alerts. These systems leverage centralized dashboards and smartphone applications to notify managers and supervisors once a potential gas leak is detected.

• Improves data analysis: Artificial intelligence and IoT are advanced technologies that can create an interoperable network of devices and machinery across production lines. Through this network, the sensor devices, equipment, and assets deployed for methane emissions communicate with each other and work on several levels with limited human intervention. Managers and supervisors can leverage these technologies to derive valuable data and analytical insight that aid timely decision-making processes on leaks and the mitigation measures to deploy.

• Aid precise location of leaks in hazardous areas: Satellites, sensor-equipped drones, and planes immune to environmental conditions, such as wind, ice, and rain, report the size and specific locations of leaks in far-flung or hazardous sites.

• Improves safety: Leaks in hazardous locations pose human risks, such as explosions and poisoning. To avoid such tragic incidents, oil and gas companies are installing advanced gas meters to get accurate and real-time information about unintended leaks in their operations.

• Enhances predictive maintenance: Old equipment in production lines is more prone to leaks, and timely replacement of such equipment can reduce emissions. The oil and gas industry is leveraging digital technologies to optimize its predictive maintenance capabilities. Digital tools equipped with IoT and AI provide valuable operational data and analytics on equipment performance while providing insights on potential damage to equipment to ensure timely repairs.

How Aegex Technology Helps You Implement Digital Methane Monitoring

Detecting and monitoring methane leaks is integral to decreasing the impact of methane on global warming and addressing stakeholder concerns. Proper identification and measuring of fugitive methane emissions will help improve efficiency along natural gas production lines while ensuring the safety of workers in hazardous environments.

Aegex Technologies offers digital tools to detect methane leaks, enhance communication, and boost production processes. Specifically, Aegex's NexVu IoT solution leverages smart sensors, endpoints, and radios to detect and monitor leaks in hazardous environments for timely interventions. Our Aegex10 Intrinsically Safe Tablet comes with the Windows 10 platform and data-driven predictive maintenance technologies to detect potential damages in old systems and parts. This provides valuable insights into predictive maintenance. Contact us today to learn more.