Reconciling Environmental and Financial Benefits of Digital Methane Mitigation


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Accelerating Toward a Digital Methane Future

Amid growing concerns regarding global warming and climate change, the oil and gas industry is increasingly turning to digital technologies to reduce methane leaks, specifically from oil and gas industry production and transportation. This piece focuses on how a digital methane mitigation strategy can bring financial, environmental, and societal benefits.

The Business Case for Adopting Digital Technologies for Methane Emissions Management

According to World Economic Forum research, digital transformation can help unlock $1.6 trillion of economic, environmental, and societal value. Accelerated and holistic adoption of digital solutions, such as those provided by Aegex Technologies, can transform how the oil and gas industry manages and makes decisions regarding methane gas emissions. The following are some of the benefits of adopting digital technologies in methane emissions management.

Improved Methane Monitoring

Researchers continue to search for better options for picking out methane leaks. The sooner supervisors become aware of leaks, the better the strategies to cut overall emissions. Digital technologies empower oil and gas companies to run advanced technologies that enable better prescriptions and quick decision-making. These technologies feature a system that can detect ahead of time potential or actual methane leak events for the quick formulation of remedies and rapid action. Newer solutions leverage spectroscopy combined with drones and piloted planes that fly close to methane leaks, including in abandoned wells in hazardous locations. Once a leak starts, it sizes them properly and alerts an operator; thereby allowing managers to optimize methane management resources, prevent losses, and cut emissions that would have otherwise bolstered global warming.

Increase Equipment Visibility and Enable Predictive Maintenance

A recent Energy Information Agency report shows replacing old equipment can help curb emissions since old equipment has more leaks. The report implores the industry to replace components early by adopting predictive maintenance strategies. Today, more and more oil and gas companies are leveraging digital technologies to build their predictive maintenance capabilities. Digital tools feature advanced technologies, including IoT and artificial intelligence, designed to provide valuable operational data and artificial analytics to aid predictive maintenance that helps cut methane leaks. It also uses smart sensors designed to monitor the performance of each system and part. Studies reveal adopting a predictive maintenance approach could save companies up to 25% of maintenance costs compared to the reactive maintenance models. Apart from minimizing the money spent on unplanned repairs, these advanced technologies help prevent outages that could impact operations.

Managing Leaks With Aegex Digitization Tools

Aegex Technologies has developed tools to detect methane leaks, improve production processes, and enhance communication. One of these tools is the NexVu IoT solution designed to track and detect leaks in hazardous environments and aid in predictive maintenance. It features endpoints, smart sensors, and radios to provide accurate methane detection, measurements, and monitoring. Another tool is the Aegex10 Intrinsically Safe Tablet, equipped with the Windows 10 platform and data-driven predictive maintenance technologies to detect potential leaks in systems and parts and enable quick and informed decisions on mitigation measures.

Key Takeaway

Methane emissions from the gas and oil industry are a leading cause of global warming and climate change. Methane leaks typically occur throughout the value chain and from production to distribution. Finding and fixing methane leaks is typically challenging for most oil and gas companies because of the enormous scale and complexity of the oil and gas infrastructure. Although there are several conventional solutions designed to address these challenges, they come with substantial drawbacks. The oil and gas industry is now turning to digital technologies to expand the scope and accelerate the scale of methane emissions reduction. Aegex Technologies provides digital solutions designed to autonomously detect leaks in hazardous locations for quick and informed decisions on mitigation measures to bolster financial, environmental, and societal benefits. Contact us today to learn more.