To effectively mitigate emissions from oil and gas processing facilities, operators need more effective information than that provided by slow, labor-intensive, intermittent surveys. A continuous solution that not only informs of leaks as they occur, but quantifies the size and scale of individual emissions as part of an accurate methane budget, will enable compliance with monitoring standards, and measurable demonstration of emissions reduction.

New technologies and associated methods of their implementation must be brought to bear on the emissions challenge rather than simply increasing the frequency of existing methods and technologies that are demonstrably inadequate to address the problem.

For example, in-situ imaging technologies capable of detecting, quantifying and visualizing methane emissions can provide an emissions record of all components at an O&G facility – both those that are emitting and those that are not. Such cameras also provide a credible baseline emissions measurement.

When these imagers are automated and coupled with analytics, such systems can send actionable alerts (subject to specific emissions thresholds and safety considerations) so that significant events can get immediate attention and so super emitters can be fixed before they emit until the next LDAR cycle – this ensures that emitters are detected if they are missed by LDAR.

Implementing technologies like this encourage operators to adopt the best long-term monitoring solution (which arguably is continuous on-site monitoring both in terms of cost and emissions reduction), and would allow operators to offset the cost of implementing such solutions by the reduced cost burden of frequent LDAR surveys.