Gas Valve Research Articles

Bioinspired Design and Applications of Liquid Gating Gas Valve Membranes

In nature, dynamic liquid interfaces play a vital role in regulating gas transport, as exemplified by the adaptive mechanisms of plant stomata and the liquid-lined alveoli, which enable efficient gas exchange through reversible opening and closing. These biological processes provide profound insights into the design of advanced gas control technologies. Inspired by these natural systems, liquid gating membranes have been developed utilizing capillary-stabilized liquids to achieve precise fluid regulation. These membranes offer unique advantages of rapid responses, stain resistance, and high energy efficiency. Particularly, they break through the limitations of traditional solid, porous membranes in gas transport. This perspective introduces bioinspired liquid gating gas valve membranes (LGVMs), emphasizing their opening/closing mechanism. It highlights how external stimuli can be exploited to enable advanced, multi-level gas control through active or passive regulation strategies. Diverse applications in gas flow regulation and selective gas transport are discussed. While challenges related to precise controllability, long-term stability, and scalable production persist, these advancements unlock significant opportunities for groundbreaking innovations across diverse fields, including gas purification, microfluidics, medical diagnostics, and energy harvesting technologies.

How simply one can considerably improve performance of the Gas Stripper at the GSI UNILAC

In this report, we propose a simple way how considerably improve the performance of the gas stripper setup at the GSI Universal Linear Accelerator (UNILAC) in Germany. In our proposed approach, we replace inside the main GSI stripper chamber the current nozzle and the short windowless storage gas cell (for the pulsed gas jet operation mode) with a simple conical diverging nozzle combined with a gas catcher tube placed on the gas jet axis at some distance downstream from the nozzle exit. As a result, the background pressure in the main and differentially pumped adjacent vacuum chambers of the gas stripper at the GSI UNILAC dramatically reduces, making it possible to achieve the required optimal thickness of the gas targets. The pulsed gas stripper operation is realized by implementing a commercially available fast gas valve connected to the nozzle entrance. Moreover, the ion beam pulse repetition rate can be increased, allowing for a considerably higher average intensity of the ion beams extracted from the GSI UNILAC. We explored the performance of the proposed GSI UNILAC gas stripper modification by means of detailed computer experiments, which provide a realistic description of supersonic gas jets flowing out of the nozzle into the vacuum. The results of these computer experiments have presented and discussed.

Spurious radiated power signal following massive material injections in JET and the effect of neutral gas pressure on resistive bolometers.

Massive material injections in the JET tokamak have been observed to substantially affect resistive bolometer measurements, resulting in a spurious radiated power signal proportional to the quantity injected and reaching up to 8MW. These bolometers are calibrated and designed to operate in near vacuum but certain scenarios requiring large gas injections can push the neutral pressure past nominal values. This study demonstrates that the bolometry measurement can be affected at neutral pressures above 0.1Pa following injections with standard gas valves, shattered pellet injections, and particularly massive gas injections. The power measurement of resistive bolometers is based on the temperature difference between a measurement sensor exposed to radiation and a shielded reference sensor. We employ a thermal conductivity model to demonstrate that the conduction through the gas and the distinct geometries between the sensors can affect their cooling efficiency. This additional cooling pathway, coupled with the Joule heating from the applied voltage causes the equilibrium temperatures of the sensors to diverge. Being the very basis of the measure, this temperature difference induces a signal that is erroneously interpreted as radiated power. Experiments show large discrepancies in the response to neutral pressure among bolometer channels, attributed to variations in channel physical parameters. Nonetheless, the modeled total radiated power reproduces the experimental measurements within an order of magnitude, affirming the sensitivity of resistive bolometers to neutral pressure and gas species.

Exploring the Application of Large Language Models Based AI Agents in Leakage Detection of Natural Gas Valve Chambers

Leakage problems occur from time to time due to the large number of equipment and complex processes during oil and gas production and transportation. The traditional detection methods highly depend on manpower with large workload and are prone to missed and false alarms, which seriously affects the efficiency and safety of oil and gas production and transportation. With the continuous improvement of information technology and the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), the research on leakage detection technology based on AI methods has attracted more and more attention. This paper discusses the application scenarios of an AI agent based on the recently emerged large language model (LLM) technology in oil and gas production leakage detection: (1) Compared with the traditional leakage detection methods, this paper innovatively employs a combination of AI-based diagnostics and infrared temperature measurement technologies to develop a specialized small model for oil and gas leakage detection, which has been proven to significantly improve the accuracy of detecting industrial venting events in natural gas valve chambers; (2) By employing retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) technology, a knowledge vector library is constructed, utilizing a series of leakage-related documents, assisting the LLM to carry out knowledge questioning and inference. Compared with the traditional SimBERT, the accuracy can be improved by about 15% in the Q&A search ability test. The correct rate is about 70% higher than the SimBERT in the Chinese complex reasoning quiz. Also, it can still remain stable under high load conditions, with the interruption rate of retrieval closing to zero. (3) By combining the specialized small model and the knowledge Q&A tool, the natural gas valve chambers’ leakage detection AI agent based on the open-source LLM model was designed and developed, which preliminarily achieved the leakage detection based on the specialized small model, and the automatic processing of the retrieval reasoning process based on the knowledge Q&A tool and the intelligent generation of corresponding leakage disposal scheme. The effectiveness of the method has been verified by actual project data. This article conducts preliminary explorations into the in-depth applications of AI agents based on LLMs in the oil and gas energy industry, demonstrating certain positive outcomes.

Design and Implementation of a GSM-Based Home Protection System Against Gas Cylinder Explosion

The aim of this work is to design and implement a GSM-based smart home protection system against the possible life-threatening firing and damage of properties due to gas cylinder explosions. These hazardous explosions are increasingly happened in Bangladesh in the recent years and hence, become serious concerns for the safety of individuals residing in a house. The system designed and implemented in this work can identify unnatural gas leakage by using gas sensors and also, sense unusual temperature increases due to firing inside a house or a restaurant by using temperature sensors. The proposed system ensures multi-level security. The audio and visual alerts are ensured by the use of fire alarms and LEDs respectively. Using GSM module, the system also makes emergency calls and sends SMS to the owner and the nearby fire station to take prompt actions. One servo motor stops the gas valve to cease the gas leakage and another one starts the water valve to flow water to reduce the temperature. Additionally, an exhaust fan is used to reduce the room temperature and let the gas flow out. Therefore, the proposed system is a potential solution to reduce life risks and property damage due to gas cylinder explosion.

Density-profile imaging using a second harmonic dispersion interferometer configured with reflective-beam expanders.

A Second-Harmonic Dispersion Interferometer (SHDI) is assembled to measure the two-dimensional, line-integrated density profile of a pulsed-plasma jet using probe-beam diameters well beyond the 1mm diameters typically used in such instruments. An initial prototype demonstrated the technique using 7mm beam diameters, which are now increased to 35mm diameter using two types of beam expanders: an achromatic-beam expander (ABE) or a reflective-beam expander (RBE). ABEs were found to add a periodic background to the measured-phase image with a magnitude of the order of Δϕ ∼ 2π radians, compared to the background phase noise level in the system configured without beam expanders at Δϕbg ∼ 0.025 radians. Subtraction of the background phase in a sample image reduced the effect of the ABE phase offset to a level of Δϕ ∼ 0.1 radians, enhancing the quality of the density measurements. Reflective-beam expanders (RBEs) did not modify the background phase appreciably and were a significant improvement, allowing the instrument to be used for 2D (r, z) density-profile measurements of a 3cm diameter × 5cm long, pulsed-plasma jet. Variations in the timing parameters for the plasma gun, specifically the gas valve opening time and the gas-injection delay, for a constant discharge current were used to map the plasma gun's performance, indicating a nominal line-integrated electron density of Nedl ≳ 3 × 1015 cm-2 and a volumetric density of Ne ≃ 9 × 1015cm-3. The results obtained for the RBE configuration demonstrate that the 2D-SHDI platform may be scaled to even larger sample areas and a rep-rated system, with the ability to potentially provide for a reproducible, time-resolved (∼1 ns), high resolution (∼100μm) measurement of 2D plasma-density profiles.

Optimization and analysis of the inflow distribution influence on the middle discharge blow tank pneumatic conveying characteristics

The influence of different inflow gas distribution modes on the pneumatic conveying characteristics of the middle discharge blow tank was studied using an in-house pneumatic conveying experimental setup. The flow rates of pressurized gas, supplementary gas, and fluidized gas were varied in this study. The gas distribution mode was then optimized to improve the energy efficiency of the blow tank of a pneumatic conveying system. The results show that the particle mass flow rate, the solid-to-gas ratio, and the pressure drop increase first and then decrease with the pressurized gas and fluidized gas valves opening. In the case of supplementary gas, the particle mass flow rate and solid-to-gas ratio increase first and then decrease. However, an opposite trend is observed for the pressure drop, which decreases first and then increases. The results highlighted that the optimized gas distribution mode increases the mass flow rate of particles and the solid-to-gas ratio by 28.48% and 15.15%, respectively. The pressure drop of the blow tank has also increased slightly, by 0.88%. Therefore, the delivery capacity and efficiency of the middle discharge blow tank are greatly improved at the cost of a slight increase in energy consumption.

Thiol-functionalized MOF modified 3D printed monolithic microextraction array for analysis of trace Cd and Pb in human urine

Controlling the position, size, and shape of pores is a limitation of traditional monolithic preparation methods. The application of 3D printing technology offers high customizability, allowing the precise printing of pore positions, sizes, and shapes according to the designer's 3D model. Herein, by using Projection Microstereolithography (PμSL), we prepared a 3D-printed monolithic array with post-modification of thiol-functionalized metal-organic framework (MOF), and combined it with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for the online analysis of trace Cd and Pb in human urine. To achieve array monolithic microextraction, six 3D-printed monolithic columns were modified with thiol-functionalized MOF-808 (MOF-808-SH), and were then assembled in the 3D printed extraction device incorporating gas valve and scaffold. The MOF-808-SH modified 3D-printed monolithic column exhibits excellent extraction performance to Cd2+ and Pb2+ due to rich active adsorption sites and hierarchical porous structure, and has long life span (>100 reused times). Under the optimized conditions, the limits of detection (LODs) are 3.5 and 17.6 ng L−1 for Cd2+ and Pb2+, respectively, with the relative standard deviations of 4.9 % and 8.2 % (0.1 μg L−1, n = 7), and the sample throughput is 11 h−1. To validate the accuracy of the method, the method was used to determine Cd and Pb in Certified Reference Materials of freeze-dried human urine, the determined results agree well with the certified values. This method was also successfully applied to the determination of trace Cd and Pb in real human urine samples. The developed method offers low LODs, robust anti-interference capability, high sample throughput, long reuse cycles, and automation analysis, showing great potential for the analysis of trace heavy metals in biological samples.

Heat transfer simulation for re-design of tray dryer to reduce the energy consumption in the cocoa bean drying process

Abstract The tray dryer for the cocoa bean drying process is a solution to overcome conventional drying methods that rely on solar heat. The tray dryer is expected to facilitate the cocoa farmers to dry cocoa beans because it is faster and does not depend on weather conditions. However, even though the current condition of the tray dryer can reduce the energy consumption of drying cocoa beans (from Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta, Indonesia) compared to the solar heat method, it remains unknown whether the cocoa beans drying quality is good enough. Therefore, this research analyzed the heat transfer phenomena of the cocoa drying process using the computational simulation method to re-design the current tray dryer design so that the new design can fit the drying characteristic of the cocoa bean and reduce energy consumption. As a result, for the air velocity of 25.91 m/s and the ½ opening of the gas valve in 10 minutes, which is already at steady-state conditions, the temperature distribution in the existing tray dryer is not suitable with the characteristics of the cocoa beans drying process. The temperature can be increased by reducing the airflow velocity or increasing the heating value by opening the valve. However, with a new design, the temperature can be increased by up to 37.00% at a velocity of 25.91 m/s with a ½ gas valve opening. Furthermore, the new design can achieve the same conditions as the existing design by only using an opening for a 1/8 gas valve. Thus, using the new design, the tray dryer can achieve the drying characteristics of cocoa beans and reduce energy consumption.

Research on the application of interferometric optical fiber sensors in high-pressure gas pipelines

The advantages of fiber optic sensors based on fiber optic interferometers with explosion-proof safety in gas pipeline monitoring has gradually emerged. A monitoring system for natural gas pipelines was designed and implemented using a Michelson interferometer as the core structure of the fiber optic sensor and processed the collected data using phase carrier generation demodulation algorithms. Addressing practical issues such as phase wrapping and arm length difference losses, an improved phase carrier demodulation algorithm based on tangent transformation and arctangent-differential self-cross-multiplication was proposed. Field experiments were conducted in gas valve chambers, to analyze the characteristics of leak signals in the pipeline. This study lays the foundation for the application of fiber optic interferometer sensors in gas pipeline monitoring, promising enhanced safety and efficiency.

Long-Term Detection of Glycemic Glucose/Hypoglycemia by Microfluidic Sweat Monitoring Patch.

A microfluidic sweat monitoring patch that collects human sweat for a long time is designed to achieve the effect of detecting the rise and fall of human sweat glucose over a long period of time by increasing the use time of a single patch. Five collection pools, four serpentine channels, and two different valves are provided. Among them, the three-dimensional valve has a large burst pressure as a balance between the internal and external air pressures of the patch. The bursting pressure of the two-dimensional diverter valve is smaller than that of the three-dimensional gas valve, and its role is to control the flow direction of the liquid. Through plasma hydrophilic treatment of different durations, the optimal hydrophilic duration is obtained. The embedded chromogenic disc detects the sweat glucose value at two adjacent time intervals and compares the information of the human body to increase or reduce glucose. The patch has good flexibility and can fit well with human skin, and because polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has good light transmission, it reduces the measurement error caused by the color-taking process and makes the detection results more accurate.

Influence of the Replenishment Methods of the Sending Tanks on Pneumatic Conveying Characteristics

AbstractData on pressure signals and gas flow rate signals was collected under various experimental conditions. A comparative analysis was conducted to investigate the gradient changes of the fluidizing gas, the supplemental gas, and the pressurizing gas. A three‐factor three‐level orthogonal experiment was carried out. The results demonstrated that the proper use of the fluidizing gas can enhance the steady condition of the conveying process. Increasing the flow rate of the supplemental gas can improve the steady flow pattern, while the pressurizing gas has the opposite effect. The degree of influence of these parameters on the steady condition of the conveying process was shown to follow the order of fluidizing gas valve opening, pressurizing gas valve opening, and regulating gas valve opening.

A hydrate reservoir renovation device and its application in nitrogen bubble fracturing

Abstract. Natural gas hydrate (GH) is a significant potential energy source due to its large reserves, wide distribution, high energy density, and low pollution. However, the gas production rate of past gas hydrate production tests is much lower than the requirement of commercial gas production. Reservoir stimulation technologies like hydraulic fractures provide one potential approach to enhance gas production from GH. The reservoir reformation behavior of the hydrate-bearing sediments (HBSs), particularly sediments with a high clay content, is a complex process during a hydraulic fracturing operation which has been poorly understood and thus hardly predictable. This paper presents an experimental facility that was developed to analyze the hydraulic fracture mechanism in synthesized HBSs. This facility can be used to form GH in sediments, conduct visual observation of hydraulic fracturing experiments, and measure the permeability of HBSs under high-pressure (up to 30 MPa) and low-temperature conditions (from 253.15 to 323.15 K). It is mainly composed of a pressure control and injection unit, a low temperature and cooling unit, a cavitation unit, a visual sapphire reactor, and a data acquisition and measurement unit. The hydraulic fracture module consists of a gas cylinder, fracturing pump, hopper, proppant warehouse, and valves. The sapphire reservoir chamber is applied to observe and measure the fracture of HBSs during hydraulic fracturing. The permeability test module is composed of a constant-flux pump and pressure sensors, which can evaluate the permeability performance before and after the hydraulic fracture in HBSs. The fundamental principles of this apparatus are discussed. Some tests were performed to verify hydraulic fracture tests, and permeability tests could be practically applied in the HBS exploitation.

Automatic LPG Gas Detection and Exhausting

Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) is a main source of fuel, especially in urban areas because it is clean compared to firewood and charcoal. Gas leakage is a major problem in the industrial sector, residential premises, etc. Nowadays, home security has become a major issue because of increasing gas leakage. Gas leakage is a source of great anxiety with ateliers, residential areas and vehicles like Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), buses, and cars which are run on gas power. Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) is a main source of fuel, especially in urban areas because it is clean compared to firewood and charcoal. Leakage of gas is a major issue in the industrial sector, residential buildings, and gas-powered vehicles such as CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) buses, cars, and other vehicles. Installing a gas leakage detection device at vulnerable locations is one of the preventive methods for preventing accidents caused by gas leaks. The goal of this project is to create a device that can detect, alert, and control gas leaks in vulnerable areas automatically. When the LPG concentration in the air reaches a certain level, the system detects LPG leakage with a gas sensor, activates the exhaust fan, and closes the gas valve automatically. Key Words: Liquefied Petroleum Gas(LPG), Compressed Natural Gas(CNG).

Development of real-time density feedback control on MAST-U in L-mode

In this paper we report on the development and demonstration of density feedback control for MAST-U. Sinusoidal perturbations are used to measure the frequency response from a deuterium gas valve (actuator) to line-integrated core electron density measured by the interferometer (sensor). In the frequency range relevant for control design, only two system-identification experiments were needed to regress a first-order dynamic model. This control-oriented model informs the offline design of a proportional integral controller with the established loop-shaping controller design method. After offline verification of the controller implementation, control is demonstrated by experimentally tracking a staircase reference for the line-integrated electron density. This paper demonstrates the efficiency of controller design using system-identification and loop-shaping, providing reliable density control for MAST-U.

Overview of advances in ASDEX Upgrade plasma control to support critical physics research for ITER and beyond

The successful operation of fusion reactors requires plasma scenarios with good core confinement and acceptable first wall heat loads that are stable and robust to external perturbations. This poses both physical and technological challenges. One of the technologies that addresses these challenges is a complex feedback control system that supports advances in physical understanding and helps to ensure stable operating conditions. The operation of marginally stable plasmas often leads to off-normal events (such as disruptions) and feedback control can prevent these to some extent. This contribution gives an overview of the main results of the development and operation of the feedback control algorithms on ASDEX Upgrade (AUG). Fueling actuators, using a combination of gas valves and pellet injection, can simultaneously control neutral density of the divertor and the density of the plasma core above the Greenwald limit. Impurity injection is employed to control the position of the X-point radiator, allowing the creation of an ELM-suppressed H-mode with high radiation fraction. Heating actuators are used to control the plasma energy content, which supports advanced tokamak experiments and enables stable I-mode operation, and the electron temperature control, which supports turbulence studies. In control technology, AUG has pioneered the use of virtual actuators, which allow effective use of the limited number of heating actuators, adaptive control policies, and exception handling. Such technologies will also be used in ITER. Advanced nonlinear state observers (RAPTOR, RAPDENS) and codes to evaluate the power deposition properties (RABBIT, TORBEAM) are available for routine use in the AUG feedback controllers. Extensive use of the AUG discharge control system further enhances the research capabilities of this machine.

Adsorption behavior of CuO doped GeS monolayer on the thermal runaway gas evolution in lithium battery energy storage systems

Considering that the thermal runaway failure of lithium battery energy storage system will cause serious safety accidents, and lithium battery thermal runaway will precipitate various detectable gases through the safety gas valve. Effective monitoring of the precipitated gas can ensure the safe operation of the energy storage system. In this study, the adsorption behavior of CuO-GeS towards the main precipitated gases CO, CO2, CH4, and C2H4 in Lithium battery before thermal runaway is systematically studied based on DFT. The adsorption structure, DOS, DCD, and ELF are analyzed to explore the interactions between CuO-GeS monolayer and the gases. The results show that CuO-GeS monolayer achieves strong adsorption of CO and C2H4 and highly sensitive monitoring of CO2 and CH4. Furthermore, the relative molecular mass ratios of CxHy and CxHy-1F (x = 1, 2 y=2, 4, 6) gases to doped CuO can satisfy Smoothing Spline with adsorption energy and charge transfer, which can be used to estimate the adsorption properties of the homologous gases. The potential application of CuO-GeS monolayer in lithium battery energy storage systems lays a theoretical research foundation for the adsorption and detection of thermal runaway gas in lithium battery energy storage systems.

Automated Gas Line Shut Off Mechanism Using Solenoid Operated Valve and Gas Leak Detector (At the Event of Gas Leakage in PNG Line)

Gas leaks that cause deadly flames have become a major issue in homes and other places where domestic gas is handled and utilized. Gas leaks cause a variety of mishaps that result in financial damage as well as personal injuries and/or loss. The project’s goal is to create a system that detects gas leaks and notifies the subscriber through alarm and status display, as well as shutting off the gas supply valve as the main safety precaution. The turning off of the supply valve prevents further gas flow to the cooker, preventing a fire breakout caused by an attempt to ignite the cooker. The device, which functions more like a first- aid kit, utilizes a usually closed solenoid valve to shut off the gas valve before asking for assistance via visual display and loud alert to anyone in the vicinity. The system is clever in that it does not cause a loud nuisance by constantly sounding the alarm, but rather the siren stops beeping once the concentration of the gas in the atmosphere after leaking falls below the predetermined value and the valve is opened again for regular operations. This effort will reduce injuries and losses caused by explosions caused by gas leaks, as well as enhance the safety of people and property while utilizing home cooking gas.

Fault diagnosis of reciprocating compressor using Teager-Kaiser energy operator and envelope spectral feature extraction

This paper proposed and implemented the Teager-Kaiser energy operator (TKEO) and envelope spectral analysis techniques for the fault detection of discharge valves of a reciprocating compressor. Based on the extraction of fault features, the instantaneous frequency and amplitude of the signals due to the discharged valve based on energy identification can be effectively characterized by the TKEO that was used to identify the characteristic fault signals accurately. The synthesized signal is processed by envelope spectral analysis and TKEO, which can extract the characteristic signal and eliminate the noise. The experimental design is verified experimentally through different reciprocating compressor gas valve conditions. The simulation results verify the feasibility of the proposed method. The experimental verification is carried out through the measurement signals of the six-cylinder reciprocating compressor under different valve operating conditions. TKEO can remove background noise to obtain reciprocating compressor fault feature signals. Feature extraction is based on TKEO and envelope spectra for fault detection of reciprocating compressors. It is expected to reduce the errors produced by traditional manual fault diagnosis methods and improve the accuracy and efficiency of fault diagnosis. The research results of vibration fault feature extraction using TKEO can be used as the basis for fault diagnosis of the reciprocating compressor system.

Investigating the influence of operating variables on sealing performance of a V-ring seal stack in the oil and gas industry for enhanced environmental and operational performance

Static V-ring seals, essential components in oil and gas industry valves, have received limited attention compared to rotary and reciprocating seals in previous research. This study fills this gap by meticulously investigating the performance of these seals under conditions involving minimal or no rotational movement, offering valuable insights into their functional capabilities. The objectives of this experimental study are to develop an experimental setup mirroring industrial conditions to assess the performance of seals used in oil and gas valves. Accordingly, two fluorinated elastomer seals (AFLAS) and three Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) seals were employed together as a single seal stack to understand the leakage behavior as well as the range of safe operating conditions under delayed gas leakage. The operating conditions for the experiments have been adopted to simulate drilling rigs. Hence, temperatures ranging from room temperature to 394.15 K and 477.15 K, diverse pressures from 4.14 MPa to 68.95 MPa, and variable motion speeds (0 RPM, 2 RPM, and 10 RPM) were incorporated in the experiments. The study revealed a positive correlation between leakage rate with both pressure and dynamic motion, reflecting valve opening and closing actions. In contrast, a negative correlation was noted between leakage rate and temperature in both static and dynamic conditions. At 68.95 MPa, the highest observed leak rate was 2.96 × 10−4 mol/s at room temperature, nearly ninety-five times higher than the rate recorded at 4.14 MPa (3.08 × 10−6 mol/s). Also, at an elevated temperature of 477.15 K, the leak rate significantly decreased to 1.08 × 10−5 mol/s, approximately twenty-six times lower than the room temperature rate. Furthermore, the study revealed that the influence of motion on leak rate diminished significantly at high temperatures compared to low temperatures, indicating a complex interplay between motion, temperature, and leakage behavior in the tested seals. Additionally, this investigation encompasses a thorough imaging analysis of the seals, aimed at assessing structural changes and the overall seal condition under varying operational circumstances. This research promises to guide customized sealing material development, enhancing safety and environmental performance in the oil and gas sector, making a valuable contribution to the industry.