Zero Routine Flaring: Role of NII in conserving natural gas

The upstream industry accounts for 90% of global flared gas, a recent study found, with over 300 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted to the environment annually. Associated gas from oil extraction activities are burned as part of the industry’s safety routine. Explosion may take place if the pressure and flammable gas released by pressure relief valves during production start-ups and shutdowns are not discharged.

In some cases, excess natural gas is disposed of due to lack of infrastructure to capture and transport it, thereby wasting valuable energy resource which could have been utilised for power generation and other forms of energy.

Zero Routine Flaring

Gas flaring is a significant contributor to climate change due to carbon dioxide and other pollutants emitted from this practice.

To address this problem, The World Bank launched the “Zero Routine Flaring by 2030” initiative in 2015, encouraging the government, oil companies and development institutions globally to seek alternative solutions to gas flaring. Extensive efforts by the participating parties have significantly paid off as the latest global gas flaring data revealed a nearly 5% flaring decline in 2017, despite 0.5% growth in global oil production.

While the recent global flaring data update is encouraging, it is still a long way to go before achieving zero emission from flaring and venting. Axess Group recognises this challenge and takes the initiative to support the oil and gas companies by implementing economically viable solutions to mitigate climate change.

Avoiding production shutdown with non-intrusive inspection

The frequency and duration of production shutdown is largely influenced by inspection of equipment for maintenance, safety and regulatory requirements. Traditionally, pressure relief valves are taken offline to perform internal visual inspection. However, this method is environmentally unsustainable because the pressure must be released via flaring.

Axess Group’s role in reducing production downtime not only helps their client in saving costs, it also largely contributes to avoiding “legacy” flaring. Breaking the conventional inspection process and employing various non-intrusive inspection (NII) techniques in examining the condition of pressure vessels and tanks can help reverse the adverse impacts of climate change.

NII uses sophisticated tools and technology—digital x-ray, vibration monitoring, ultra-high frequency analysis and dynamic contact resistance measurements— in assessing the internal condition of vessels while they are online and operating. The key benefits of NII in offshore application are:

Reduced production shutdowns that would cause production loss and flaring
Shortened turnaround durations
Improved personnel safety with remote inspection
Increased production with uninterrupted uptime
Overall time and cost savings

Embracing technological transformation in offshore inspection is a part of Axess’ leadership initiatives to provide the oil and gas industry with the most climate-efficient services. Implementing non-intrusive inspection, in combination with long-term planning and collaboration with clients, will significantly abate unplanned operational interruption. Less production shutdown, less gas flaring.

Axess Group is committed to deliver environmentally sustainable solutions to their clients by constantly developing methods and investing in new technology with the lowest emission possible. Strategic planning to predict the condition of equipment is key to minimise shutdown and eliminate routine flaring.

Learn more about our climate-efficient services. Send us an email at [email protected] for collaboration.

Axess Group’s Climate Roadmap Download

Axess helps their customers eliminate routine flaring by developing and utilising efficient tools and advanced non-intrusive inspection methods.

Bridge: Tackling climate change with digitalisation

At Axess Group, we embrace digitalisation by constantly improving our own tools and methodologies to provide our customers with better productivity, improved safety and huge savings. In 2021, we established Axess Digital, dedicated to developing industry-leading digital solutions.

Bridge, an inspection software that helps to optimise inspection and reporting processes, has been helping our customers in managing their assets in the most efficient way. It provides a centralised system for inspectors and clients alike to share and view inspection reports and compliance status of assets. Comprising of several modules which complement Axess’ services, it may be integrated into the customers’ existing maintenance systems for better asset management.

Bridge does more than just automating the inspection routine. The integration of this digital tool to our clients’ processes also remarkably aids in the reduction of carbon footprint. Read on to learn the three ways our climate and customers benefit from Bridge.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Effective preventive maintenance

Maintenance activities over a global fleet-wide scale consequently represent a main source of pollution and energy consumption. Anti-corrosion and cleaning procedures, well workover operations, equipment replacement and ballast water discharges are just some of the activities that release toxic chemicals to the sea. This poses great risk to human health, marine environment and climate.

Successful preventive maintenance plans rely on a detailed record of historical data that shows trends and allow users to forecast future plans. Bridge can capture and mine data from the inspection modules and provide clients’ with a dashboard that contains key information for each asset and allows transparency for onshore management. Harnessing the power of data gives them total control of their inspection, compliance and maintenance processes, while taking into account the climate impacts of their activities.

Key benefits of preventive maintenance strategy:

Reduces the frequency of unforeseen equipment failures
Guard assets against premature deterioration
Extends the overall life cycle of equipment
Reduces overall maintenance costs

Reduces the need for travel

The transportation of personnel onshore to offshore is one of the contributors of greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas industry. Civil aviation accounts for about 2% of the 36 billion tonnes man-made carbon emissions. In 2017 alone, the aviation industry emitted around 859 million tonnes of CO2.

With Bridge, clients are able to conduct more inspections on their own, removing the need to deploy personnel offshore. In turn, this reduces carbon emissions. Even if mobilisations are required, we deploy a small and multi-skilled team instead of deploying multiple personnel at various times to perform the same tasks.

Reducing energy consumption with cloud-based servers

Internet usage based on cloud computing is becoming a huge contributor to the reduction of carbon emissions. Storing data in cloud is more energy efficient compared to traditional data centres.

With cloud, the resources that keep data centres up and running efficiently – servers, power, cooling system and other infrastructures – are less needed, which translates to reduced energy consumption and huge carbon savings. In addition, large-scale cloud providers use 28% less carbon-intense power mix than average corporate data centres.

As Bridge operates on a cloud-based server, it enables our inspectors to transfer data to a virtual server for storage and processing, from different locations and from different devices. The combination of cloud infrastructure and automated inspection software allows for fast workload delivery, which maximises energy and achieves resource efficiency.

In a nutshell

Bridge is a practical solution that greatly improves work efficiency and simultaneously abates carbon emissions. With the ability to streamline the inspection and reporting procedure in one digital platform, our clients can better plan their preventive maintenance and reduce pollution related to excessive maintenance activities. On the other hand, our multi-skilled inspection teams can strategically reduce travels and time spent offshore, as they could perform more work within the same time frame.

Axess Group’s Climate Roadmap Download

Bridge is an Axess Digital product that contributes to overall project efficiency.