Safer than self-driving cars

Self-driving cars seem to be on the horizon and many debate their safety. The oil industry has much stricter safety protocols in dealing with sour gas pipeline specifications.

Without AppIntel, how would you find novel approaches to facility design? We found this one by typing into the AppIntel search box  acid gas blend .

Self driving car photo credits: Becky Stern. You can share it too.

One operator is blending acid gas with a sweeter stream to keep under the gathering system specification. The entire stream is sent on to a Sulphur processing facility.

Help yourself to his application documents from our self-serve site.

Self driving cars

Driverless cars have captured the imagination of North America. Proponents dream of the disappearance of road rage and lower accident rates. Opponents believe that such cars erode human freedom of expression.

Bugs still exist in the prototypes. Driverless collisions make national news. Safety protocols are still evolving.

Oil industry is safer

The same dreamers that excite over horse-less and driver-less carriages, proclaim nightmares about the oil and gas extraction industry. They twist their hands over potential pipeline ruptures and marine oil spills.

But there are far more miles of pipeline in Alberta than miles of road. And also there are far fewer pipeline leaks than auto accidents.

Regulators and facility engineers make a much more concerted effort to protect the public than vehicle operators.

Pipeline H2S content regulated

Hydrogen sulphide content of Alberta pipelines is strictly regulated. A pipeline designed to carry 5% H2S is not allowed to carry any more than that fraction.

So when high H2S content wells are discovered in a sweet pipeline area, operators tend to blend. Ten percent H2S is blended with sweet gas until it is within the gathering system specification. Safeguards are put in place to ensure compliance.

The subject application discusses safeguards for this installation. The regulator required them and the operator responded willingly.

AppIntel hit alerts deliver applications of technical interest

A hit alert automatically sends you new AER applications that match a search string. Get hit alerts for applications that contain acid gas blend or Kawka gas somewhere in the application documents.

Every day AppIntel searches through all newly submitted documents for your search string. When it finds an application that meet your criteria, you receive it in your email inbox.

Tags: Gas Injection, Compliance, Facilities

Granger Low   16 Jul 2018

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