A device a bit bigger than a breadbox promises to eliminate polluting emissions from thousands of natural gas wells across Alberta and North America.

The “Emission Eliminator,” developed by CDK Environmental Products of Calgary, has performed beyond expectations in four months of field-testing by oil and gas giant Conoco Canada Resources Limited.

“We’re getting a lot of interest” in the technology, says Robert Metzinger, general manager at CDK Environmental.

The device virtually eliminates venting or emissions from small pumps on natural gas wells.

David Lazarowych, Business Edge
Robert Metzinger of CDK Environmental Products shows off his company's biggest gun in the war on oilpatch pollution.

The amount of venting from gas-well pumps and other oilfield equipment is increasing in the province. The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) has identified venting as a serious concern and wants the emissions reduced.

A significant amount of venting occurs due to gas released by thousands of small pumps that are installed on gas wells. The pumps inject or circulate chemicals – such as ice-preventing methanol – into the well and related surface equipment.

There are at least 100,000 gas wells in western Canada that are equipped with these chemical-injection pumps, says Kelly Grimes, general manager at CDK Services Ltd., CDK Environmental’s parent firm.

“You’d be surprised at (how much gas) these little chemical pumps vent and how stinky it gets,” Grimes says.

Bob Henderson, manager of purchasing at Conoco Canada, says if the six Emission Eliminator prototypes now being field-tested continue to perform well throughout the winter, there is an enormous potential market.

“There are a lot of applications everywhere in the oil industry throughout North America, probably pretty much worldwide wherever you have an injection requirement” in producing natural gas, said Henderson.

Some chemical-injection pumps run on electricity or compressed air (which still requires power to drive the compressor). Although companies have to pay to bring in the power, there’s no venting because the pump’s operation doesn’t depend on gas.

But the more common approach – widespread in the oilpatch – is to use propane gas from a nearby processing plant or so-called casing gas from the well itself to drive the pump’s hydraulic action. This propane or gas is then simply vented into the air.

“Up until the last couple of years, this (approach) really hasn’t been a big concern,” Grimes says. But at current prices for propane or natural gas, it costs a company an average of $4,000 to $6,000 a year to operate the chemical-injection pump on each well, he says.

Along with the rising cost of electricity or fuel gas to drive the pump, there is also the growing concern about the impact of venting on nearby landowners. Vented gas can be captured and flared or burned, but flaring adds to an operation’s costs and is also controversial.

“Venting of any kind of equipment to the atmosphere is not a good thing,” Conoco’s Henderson says.

CDK Environmental, with funding from Conoco, developed the Emission Eliminator to attach directly to standard chemical-injection pumps. The device, which runs on the casing gas from the well, uses a small pressure differential at the wellhead to activate the injection pump.

The Eliminator also captures the exhaust gas from the process and redirects it back into the gas-gathering system, creating a closed loop.

There are no emissions to atmosphere, no need to pay for an outside power source or fuel gas and no expense of flaring, Metzinger says. Companies will also be able to claim the credits from reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, he adds.

There’s another spinoff benefit. The Emission Eliminator can be used to produce pressurized air to run wellhead instruments at remote sites without power-operated air compressors.

Henderson says the technology “is significant in respect of the energy cost savings, but it’s also significant in respect of the progress toward having a zero-emission operation.”

CDK Environmental also has developed another environmental product, called the TE2000 Composite Wellhead, which is getting oilpatch attention. The compact wellhead has all the blowout preventers, shut-off valves and other safety equipment that meets EUB regulations for “critical” and “non-critical” sour oil wells. The designation depends on how much poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas the wells contain.

Most companies now meet EUB regulations by stacking a mixture of blowout preventers and other equipment atop each well. But this creates a wellhead that is two to three metres high. And that interferes with connections to and the performance of the well’s pumpjack, which draws oil from the well.

CDK’s technology packs all the required equipment into one compact wellhead that stands only 82 centimetres high – making for easy connections to and smooth operation of the pumpjack.

Alberta has hundreds of sour oil wells where the composite wellhead could replace the unwieldy tall wellheads, says Mark Hopkins, vice-president of finance for CDK Services.

Keith Gerlack, field production superintendent for Alberta Energy Company, says CDK’s composite wellhead is a good concept. “There’s a definite market there. They (CDK) just have to capture it.”

Increasing public concern about the impacts of oil and gas production, along with tougher regulations, are driving the need for more environmentally related products, Hopkins says. “This is really a hot area for people right now. It’s where there’s a lot of opportunity.”

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