Development of an Advanced Gas Emissions Monitoring System for Oil and Gas Production Sites

Abstract

The oil and gas industry involves an extensive variety of operations and supplies and is a major source of gas emissions. Gases emitted from oil and natural gas extraction operations may be extremely toxic and include Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Propane (C3H8), Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S), Hydrogen (H2) and Ethyl Alcohol (C2HsOH). The proliferation of these gases in the air creates an unsatisfactory and risky working environment for the crew at rig sites, and prolonged exposure may lead to serious long-tem1 health problems. Therefore environmental condition monitoring systems in engineering plants have increased in significance because they provide a primary safeguard by employing condition-monitoring algorithms to monitor gas emissions. This paper discusses gas emissions during oil extraction operations, where gas emissions begin at the early stages of the exploration phase and continue during the development and oil production phases. The paper also describes the development of a low-cost advanced gas emissions monitoring system (GEMS) capable of monitoring hazardous gases at oil and gas production sites, including the measurement ofH2S, CH4, C3H8, CO2, C2H50H and H2. The system output utilises Wi-Fi, GPRS and GSM data transmission to provide information to control rooms and other monitoring sites using the Cloud space concept. The validation of the advanced GEMS has been conducted in the laboratory by testing its capability to monitor gases similar to those found at oil and gas production sites.