Assessment of Pneumatic Controller Emission Measurements Using a High Volume Sampler at Oil and Natural Gas Production Pads in Utah

摘要

A pilot study using an augmented HVS sampling protocol for measurement of pneumatic controller emissions at ONG production sites was described. The HVS worked well on the pneumatic controller emissions with the leak capture DQI being met by 7 of the 8 pneumatics sampled. Acquisition of FDD and PID measurements at the exhaust of the HVS was found to be a potentially useful indicator to verify that the HVS is operating properly. The pneumatic measurements in this pilot study demonstrated close agreement between the FID and HVS leak concentrations on relatively pure CH_4 streams coming from pneumatics. For the pneumatics the FID to PID ratio was measured to be greater than 100 (FID/PID ＞ 100) for all the leaks. Further investigation is needed on emission rate fluctuations and HVS response time. For the thief hatch measurements, the FID indicator showed a possible issue as the FID flamed out, indicating concentrations ＞ 5%, in the range of the potential sensor transition failure. The HVS readings were also highly variable for the thief hatch measurement and will be informed further by pending canister measurements. The results of this pilot study show that the HVS may provide accurate estimates of upstream ONG production facility leak rates from pneumatics. The use of supporting measurements such as OGI or leak capture and FID, PID, and canisters can help validate HVS measurements. Additional information from this pilot study and progress to develop an augmented HVS sampling protocol will be discussed in the presentation.