TÜV SÜD National Engineering Laboratory has launched a Joint Industry Project (JIP) that will support regulatory authorities and industry to establish new standards and practices for the use of online oil-in-water analyzers at remote locations.
The outcome from the JIP will provide the confidence needed by the industry and regulatory authorities in using online oil-in-water analyzers for produced water discharge reporting at unmanned and manned sites. Ultimate benefits will include more accurate measurement of oil levels being discharged into the ocean, a reduction in operating costs as the need for manual sampling and the use of chemicals for laboratory analysis will be minimized and enabling unmanned oil and gas production.
This latest JIP will build on a previous TÜV SÜD National Engineering Laboratory initiative (2019-2020), involving six operators and the UK regulator BEIS Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy). It will verify the practicality, by conducting up to three field trials of the proposed new methodology for accepting online oil-in-water analyzers for reporting, develop a way for real-time uncertainty calculation for online oil-in-water analyzers, and update existing guidance from OSPAR (Oslo/Paris Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic), BEIS and Norsk Olje & Gas 085.
Dr. Ming Yang, a principal consultant at TÜV SÜD National Engineering Laboratory, said: “While online continuous oil-in-water analyzers have been used by the global oil and gas industry for produced water management for many years, they have been limited to process trending for manned operations. However, industry wants to increasingly develop unmanned and subsea separation systems to further maximize oil recovery and increase cost-effective production. This JIP is the next big step in making produced water discharge in remote locations a reality, by establishing industry standards and practices acceptable to the regulators in relation to the use of online oil-in-water analysers for reporting.”
