The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has continued to increase its emissions data requirements and number of regulations. The Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Rule (referred to as 40 CFR Part 98) requires reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) data and other relevant information from large sources and suppliers in the US.
The EPA recently extended Subpart W emissions reporting requirements to gas gathering lines and boosting stations prior to the gas processing phase. The amended rules require calculating, monitoring and reporting emissions for these additional sources, with 2017 as the initial reporting data year.
As Wood Group Mustang’s Hong Qin explains in an article recently published in Gas Processing, compliance is no simple task. She says, “This GHG reporting rule requires an unprecedented amount of data input from oil and natural gas producers. Much of the information is normally tracked by separate functional groups for different purposes and most of these data are hosted in different formats and systems that do not share the same technology due to the intended functionalities.
"The solution involved the automation of data collection," she explains. "To comply with EPA regulations, particularly with Subpart W, natural gas producers have turned to a centralized data warehouse that automates data collection, integration and quality assurance. Automating that effort reduced labor time from six weeks to one or two hours. Data is reusable for other federal and state agencies, avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort. Additionally, the data accuracy allows the environmental staff to further analyze operating data for maximizing production while minimizing air emissions."
Read the full article here.
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