Baker Hughes technology enables bp to achieve flare emissions monitoring breakthrough

Energy technology company Baker Hughes has announced a breakthrough in flare emissions monitoring following a collaboration with bp. Using Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement technology, flare.IQ, bp is quantifying methane emissions from its flares, a new application for the upstream oil and gas sector, the companies said.

With no universally accepted solution to quantifying methane emissions from flares, bp and Baker Hughes conducted one of the largest ever full-scale studies of flare combustion, including testing a range of flares under challenging conditions and verifying the accuracy of flare.IQ technology, Baker Hughes said.

Now, acting on real-time data from flare.IQ at 65 flares across seven regions, bp can carry out early interventions and reduce emissions from flaring.

“bp’s transformation is underway, turning strategy into action through delivery of our targets and aims,” said Fawaz Bitar, bp senior vice president of Health Safety Environment & Carbon.

“We don’t have all the answers, and we certainly can’t do this on our own. Through our long-standing partnership with Baker Hughes, we have progressed technology and implemented methane quantification for oil and gas flares, helping us to achieve the first milestone of our Aim 4. We continue to look at opportunities like this, where we can collaborate across the industry to find solutions to our biggest challenges,” he said.

“Our collaboration with bp is an important landmark and a further illustration that technology is a key enabler for addressing the energy trilemma of security, sustainability and affordability,” said Ganesh Ramaswamy, executive vice president of Industrial & Energy Technology at Baker Hughes.

“As a leader in developing climate technology solutions, such as our flare.IQ emissions monitoring and abatement technology, cooperations like the one we have with bp are key to testing and validating in the field solutions that can enable operators to achieve emissions reduction goals efficiently and economically.”

Part of Baker Hughes’ Panametrics product line portfolio, flare.IQ builds on four decades of ultrasonic flare metering technology experience. Its advanced analytics platform enables operators to pull critical information from their flare systems, including temperature, pressure, vent gas velocities and gas composition, helping maximise combustion efficiency and minimise emissions. The solution enables emissions reporting based on real-time measurement, in compliance with OGMP 2.0 level 4.