Extensive Environmental-Monitoring Project Relies on Integration of Several Networks

Abstract

This article, written by Editorial Manager Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper SPE 156294, ’Innovative Environmental Monitoring for Upstream Onshore Installation,’ by Paolo Carnevale, SPE, and Silvia Di Croce, Eni, prepared for the 2012 SPE/APPEA International Conference on Health, Safety, and Environment in Oil and Gas Exploration and Production, Perth, Australia, 11-13 September. The paper has not been peer reviewed. A comprehensive environmental-monitoring project in the Agri Valley in southern Italy has been developed to ensure continuous management of the environmental effects of Eni’s oil treatment center there. This project is able to control the environmental effects of exploration and production in a large area around the plant (100 km2). It is characterized by a complete integration of several networks, stations, and systems used to monitor simultaneously air quality, noise, odorous emissions in terms of olfactory nuisance, groundwater and soil quality, ecosystems status, and ecological biodiversity. Introduction The area where the environmental-monitoring project was developed is characterized by sites that have community-level protection, especially areas protected because of national parks, widespread woods, rivers and streams of high quality, and springs and ground water of great regional and national importance for the production of safe drinking water. Eni’s oil treatment center in this territory collects the production from 24 oil wells, amounting to approximately 104,000 BOPD (Fig. 1). The environmental-monitoring plan consists of environmental-monitoring networks on more than 100 km2 at altitudes between 600 and 900 m. The system includes monitoring networks relevant to the following environmental variables: Air quality Biosystems Bad odors Noise Microseismicity Ecosystem Air Quality The network consists of four monitoring units placed 2.3–4.8 km from the oil center. The sites were chosen according to a model that predicted the spread of emissions from the oil center. The air-quality-monitoring stations were installed outside the plant to continuously identify the effects that production activities have on the quality of the air and to provide operational warnings to avoid any negative effect on the surrounding territory. Each unit is provided with computerized instruments, allowing continuous monitoring of the levels of carbon mon-oxide, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, ozone, nitrogen oxides, benzene, toluene, xylene, methane, nonmethane gases, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and radon, and monitoring of meteorological standards (e.g., wind speed and direction, rainfall levels, humidity, temperature). The data received continuously from the monitoring units are reported in real time on the Web and in the control room of the plant and are compared continuously with information on pollution standards taken from the chimneys of the oil center.