Monitoring for hazardous gases is an important layer of safety protection at many plants. For instance, in oil and gas production platforms and well pads, produced fluids may include hydrogen sulfide (H2S), a hazardous gas extremely toxic to site personnel. Concentrations over 100 parts per million is immediately dangerous to life and health (IDLH) and higher concentrations can be fatal.
Emerson’s Sean McLeskey discussed an innovation with the introduction of wireless gas monitoring sensors at the 2017 Emerson Exchange conference. Sean highlights the introduction of the Rosemount 928 Wireless Gas Monitor, which enables manufacturers and producers to extend the protection of toxic gas monitoring to remote wellheads and other challenging applications.
Sean opened discussing the factors that make gas detection challenging at some sites. For traditional wired sensors, installing and commissioning these sensors can be costly and time consuming. Maintaining, calibrating, and replacing gas detectors is difficult and labor intensive. Gas detection is viewed solely as a cost to the business—seen more as an insurance cost than an investment.
For some sites, this monitoring is not done at all or done with manual monitors placed on personnel or carried with portable monitors. Without fixed point detection, people can be sent into harm’s way before know that hazardous gases are present in dangerous concentrations. There is no way of knowing if a toxic gas leak is underway.
The H2S leak could also point to other abnormal situations in the process. The other issue is that if dangerous levels of gas are detected, personnel cannot enter the area resulting in a wasted trip that could have been avoided by a fixed-point sensor.
With wireless fixed point gas monitoring, the cost of wiring and associated infrastructure is eliminated. If an existing WirelessHART network is in place, then the device simply joins the network. The can also flexibly be relocated as well conditions change.
If the monitors detect H2S, there is also a likelihood that hydrocarbons are leaking potentially leading to additional safety issues and loss of production. Having immediate notification of these conditions allows the situation to be identified and corrected more quickly.
Traditional gas monitor sensors have proprietary protocols and short life batteries. With the introduction of wireless gas monitors based on WirelessHART, standard handheld communications and PC applications can connect with these devices with the need for separate software and hardware.
Sean summed up the benefits in not only safer operations, but the opportunity to avoid wasted trips to the location and finding and fixing releases more quickly.