Methane emissions regulations are a top concern for oil and gas producers, but a partnership between Honeywell Process Solutions and Weatherford International aims to change the conversation from compliance to value.
In May, Honeywell and Weatherford announced a partnership to deliver a comprehensive emissions management solution for the energy industry. The agreement combines Honeywell's emissions management suite with Weatherford's Cygnet SCADA platform. It provides a tool to monitor, report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It also tracks flammable hydrocarbons and other potentially dangerous and toxic gases.
During the opening session of the 2024 Honeywell Users Group in Dallas, CEO Pramesh Maheshwari, and Weatherford CEO Girish Saligram briefly touched on the partnership. In a breakout session at the conference, Adrian Fielding (right in photo), general manager of emissions control & reduction, Honeywell, and Brandon Fore (left in photo), CygNet global product manager, Weatherford International, offered a closer look at the new solution, which currently has five pilot customers and is scheduled to go to market in November.
“Everyone is aware of the compliance challenges, so we are looking at value,” Fielding told the audience. “There’s a need to increase profitability [around emissions data] and that’s where the value comes in.”
He added that there is a lot of guess work involved in emissions monitoring in the oil and gas sector, so the two companies devised a product to offer a baseline on what customers’ emissions are so they can work from there to decrease their emissions while still maintaining production and profitability levels from their wells.
The challenges
Weatherford knows the challenges of tracking, reporting and then keeping tabs on fugitive emissions. Headquartered in Houston, the multinational oilfield services company has been helping producers not only drill and complete wells since the 1940s, but also helping them get a handle on their production efficiency and even more recently their fugitive emissions, especially in the face of increasing legislation on oil and gas production around the globe.
“Regulations are the other side of the coin when it comes to emissions monitoring,” Fore said. “That’s why our customers are very excited about this partnership.”
He outlined one common challenge facing upstream producers, who spend an average of some $4 million per year looking for fugitive emissions. And their quarterly reviews, using leak detection and repair (LDAR) technologies such as drones and satellites, are only as good as the previous three months. “What happens if the next day you get a leak, then it’s there for three more months,” Fore said.
That’s particularly troubling for producers as the governments conduct their own flyover LDAR inspections in the meantime. The result can be hefty fines.
“Real-time monitoring lets [producers] know what’s going on 24/7,” Fore added. “They can operate more efficiently.”
From compliance to value
With the collaboration, the two companies expect operators to forego waiting to be told what to do about their emissions and embrace the value created by the visibility of those emissions. The integrated solution enables upstream oil and gas operators to track emissions data in near real-time, identify and address potential issues, and meet regulatory requirements. It also provides users with access to advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, helping them make data-driven decisions to reduce emissions, improve environmental performance and meet their environmental goals.
While there is a lot of new legislation coming into the industry concerning emissions, the latest round of legislation allows for new technologies and continuous monitoring as a means of reducing emissions. In addition, this new solution will aid in reporting of emissions on a more accurate basis, which can better be reflected in SEC reporting to decrease the chances of being fined for fugitive emissions.
Other value-enablers from the new solution include incremental cash-flow from reduced product losses, better production uptime from predictive maintenance activities, and actionable insights that can boost production from low-emission sites.
What’s next?
Fielding and Fore said the plan for the collaborative system is to build operational value and create opportunities for enterprise-wide, emissions-based profitability.
The first step in the collaboration was to embed near real-time, quantifiable emissions data from an easily deployed, low-maintenance solution into existing operations user interface of Weatherford’s CygNet SCADA platform and ForeSite production optimization platform.
In the first quarter of 2025, the companies plan to offer enhanced data providing emissions location to equipment and trending to enable proactive operations and maintenance activities.
The second quarter of 2025 will see provisions for amalgamated data from multiple well pads to enable balanced production and low emissions. “It’s flexibility to overdrive production while maintaining emissions objectives,” Fielding said.
In the end, the companies believe co-creating this new offering will time to value and enhance customer performance.
