Good data in, good data out: how oilfield automation can support your EHS department.
Though the fundamental business case for oilfield automation is to enhance production and be more profitable, Bright Sky has worked with upstream and midstream operators to bring their automation data to the forefront of environmental compliance. As air permits become more stringent and require more "proof" of compliance, keeping operational and environmental data in a spreadsheet is an increasing burden on the field crews and operators of oil and gas sites. Bright Sky has helped bridge the gap between a company's EHS team and automation team to ensure that the correct equipment parameters, units of measurement, and timescale for oilfield automation data are monitored, tagged, and brought into data processing visualization systems during the facility design and construction.
How do we do this? We work with the EHS team to analyze all of the equipment and monitoring requirements of an air permit, communicate what equipment needs to be monitored to the automation team, and then work through the gritty details of all of the incoming data to ensure that the correct parameters are being monitored and historized.
Examples of data that are often required by an air permit to be monitored at an oil and gas facility include:
1. Flare flame presence.
2. Engine and heater runtimes or fuel usage.
3. Engine pre-catalyst temperature and pressure drop across a catalyst.
4. Waste stream flow to an enclosed combustor or thermal oxidizer.
5. Facility inlet and outlet gas and liquid flows.
"This project highlighted the importance of specifying air permit-specific and company GHG protocol-specific monitoring requirements during the design stage so that there were no capital expense surprises during the post-construction phase of the facilities." - Kat Galloway, President of Bright Sky Environment.