The Vapor Recovery Unit (VRU) at the Oil Pumping Station (PS) named after N. Shmanov of «KazTransOil» JSC in Atyrau region fully justifies its mission - blocking harmful emissions into the atmosphere and ensuring the environmental cleanliness of oil transportation process. According to last year’s results due to the VRU application at PS named after N. Shmanov, atmospheric emissions decreased by 80%.
Pipeline transportation is the most environmentally friendly means of oil transportation in the world. To improve the level of environmental safety of its own system of main oil pipelines, «KazTransOil» JSC enhances transportation technologies and introduces eco-friendly and energy-saving technologies into production. In particular, the TS-4500 VRU was part of the reconstruction project of PS named after N. Shmanov and was installed at the station in parallel with the expansion of its tank farm. During the station reconstruction, 8 additional oil storage tanks with a capacity of 140,000 m3 were put into operation, which required additional measures to protect the environment from possible growth in harmful emissions when pumping and storing oil at PS.
«The principle of VRU operation is the absorption process, when light hydrocarbon vapor passes through a filtering layer of activated carbon granules,» says Marlen Tulegenov, chief engineer of the Atyrau Oil Pipeline Department. – Volatile organic compounds are retained on the surface of activated carbon, while almost pure air, which does not contain hydrocarbons, is released from VRU to the atmosphere. When the activated carbon reaches a certain level of saturation with volatile organic compounds, the filter switches to regeneration mode. Regeneration, or purification, of activated carbon is achieved by applying a vacuum and purge air passed through the filtering layer. In this case, hydrocarbon particles from the filter are trapped and returned to the reservoir by the use of an absorbing liquid. This ensures a simultaneous cutback in losses during oil transportation.
Installation of VRU at PS named after N. Shmanov positively influenced many parameters of the facility: protection of PS personnel from inhaling toxic gases, lowering production costs. In addition, captured hydrocarbon vapors are a valuable product that would otherwise be thrown out «into the atmosphere».
«When drawing up standards for maximum permissible emissions, the department of ecology of Atyrau region gave recommendations on equipping facilities of enterprises with vapor recovery units in order to reduce emissions,» said Ainur Khaliakhmetova, chief specialist of environmental regulation division of the department of ecology of Atyrau region. - Atyrau Oil Pipeline Management of «KazTransOil» JSC is the only enterprise near Atyrau, which equipped its facilities with such an eco-efficient unit. In general, it is worth noting that the Atyrau Oil Pipeline Department is one of the enterprises with special care for environmental protection measures.
In the long term, «KazTransOil» JSC intends to implement a similar project for installation of VRU at PS named after T. Kassymov, also located in Atyrau region. At the moment, a feasibility evaluation for design and survey works has been developed within the framework of an innovative project «Introduction of Vapor Recovery Unit at PS named after T. Kassymov», with an estimated implementation period in 2019-2021.
Another aspect of concern for the environmental state and load reduction is the optimization of the use of all types of energy resources at PS named N. Shmanov and other facilities of the Atyrau Oil Pipeline Department (AOPD) of «KazTransOil» JSC: natural gas and electric energy.
More than 70% of AOPD’s total energy consumption is ecologically clean fuel - natural gas, but its consumption also needs environmental safety control. Natural gas is used to heat oil in oil pipelines to ensure their throughput. In order to decrease greenhouse gases emissions from oil heaters, the heaters temperature regime is controlled, and if necessary, adjusted.
In the process of energy consumption, innovative technologies are also applied at the facilities of «KazTransOil» JSC. Thus, soft start electrical equipment with variable frequency drives (VFD) are widely used in AOPD. VFD advantages include energy saving, efficient peak torque, longer service life of electrical equipment.
In addition, in all AOPD facilities there is a systematic replacement of fluorescent lamps for LEDs.
As a result of comprehensive energy saving measures in 2017, the consumption volume of all energy resources in AOPD amounted to 50,502 tons of reference fuel (TRF), which is 32% lower in terms of resources consumption compared to 2013 (74,313 TRF).
In general, «KazTransOil» JSC expenses for environmental protection in 2017 amounted to 669 million 367 thousand tenge, which is 38% higher than in 2016. The total amount of company’s harmful emissions into the atmosphere in 2017 did not exceed established standards.
Reference:
«KazTransOil» JSC is the national operator for main oil pipelines of the Republic of Kazakhstan, owns a diversified network of main oil pipelines with the length of 5.4 thousand km and water pipelines with the length of 1.9 thousand km. The production facilities of the group of companies of «KazTransOil» JSC are located in Karaganda, Pavlodar, Turkestan, North Kazakhstan, Atyrau, Mangistau, West Kazakhstan, Kyzylorda, Almaty, Aktobe, East Kazakhstan regions of Kazakhstan.
Since 2004, «KazTransOil» JSC has been carrying out large-scale work on the introduction of energy-saving technologies into production. In 2004, on linear nodes of the Kenkiyak-Atyrau oil pipeline, autonomous photovoltaic stations were installed, converting solar energy into kilowatts. Since 2008, systematic work has been carried out to save energy and cut regulatory technical losses of thermal and electric energy, which resulted in reduction of specific consumption of electricity in 2017 up to 4.5 kW/thous.ton-km (in 2009 - 5.65 kW/thousand km), natural gas consumption - up to 112.3 million cubic meters (in 2009 - 165.4 million cubic meters), fuel and lubricant materials consumption - 5.05 tons (in 2009 - 9,067 tons). At the same time, the decrease of main types of energy resources occurred against the background of an increase in the volumes of oil and water turnover.
Department of Public Relations
and Internal Communications of
«KazTransOil» JSC
