With 49% of the world’s gross domestic product under net zero goals, the global community is changing in how it treats emissions and carbon releases, with shareholders, stakeholders and investors demanding transparency on current performance and strategies to reduce or offset emissions. High frequency, reliable data empowers an organisation to strategically optimise and track emissions to reach committed goals from the asset level to the board room and across direct, indirect and supply chain sources (Scope 1, 2 and 3). A carbon footprinting solution, which provides a holistic view of total greenhouse gas emissions, requires a combination of carbon accounting, control system integration, emissions monitoring and greenhouse gas reporting software, to deliver an automated, reliable and verifiable real-time emissions/carbon reporting solution. This solution is also critical in providing managed data which can be utilised in the carbon economy and when combined with a blockchain platform, results in a holistic data transfer chain for emissions reporting which is secure, transparent and trusted throughout industry and government. The role of comprehensive, connected environmental monitoring will be explored in the role of effective emissions offset and carbon trading economies with blockchain supported technologies being presented as an enabling aspect of the overall solution. Smart contracts embedded within a blockchain solution could automate trading mechanisms however require quality emissions monitoring data as a foundation for successful implementation. The role of quality emissions monitoring and governance in this process will be presented together with implications for industry and government for the carbon economy.

Operators are building roadmaps to reduce emissions at an increasing rate because of initiatives such as the Australian Government’s Safeguard Mechanism and global draft proposals to make emissions from plants auditable. There are three main levers for integrated gas operators: (1) Optimising existing operations to improve efficiency. (2) Designing sustainable developments and modifications. (3) Rebalancing portfolios to lower carbon equivalent intensity assets. Large capital projects are typically proposed as responses to the second lever – such as carbon capture and electrification. However, operating assets hold pressing challenges to reduce ~10–20% of emissions and need to develop viable roadmaps. Through our work in Australian integrated gas industry, we found that the majority of CO2-e operational emissions reduction opportunities can be addressed by discrete improvement programmes on rotating reliability, process optimisation and methane leak reduction. We discuss how asset operators can drive their Operations, Energy Transition and Digital Functions to realise these significant CO2-e benefits on a scale of months by: (1) Developing a value-driven decarbonisation strategy for operations, identifying benefits in production, cost and emissions, front-loaded with high impact, rapid 20–30% reduction initiatives that can be realised in the next 1–2 years. (2) Implementing effective and auditable real-time monitoring of plant emissions direct from existing control systems, sensors and imaging techniques. (3) Deriving a programme of tech-enabled optimisation levers and bringing this into new designs for carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), hydrogen and electrification projects for maximum benefits.

Hydrate management is a pervasive challenge for the offshore oil and gas industry. The consequences of a hydrate blockage in a flowline can be significant due to deferred production and additional expenditure to remediate a blockage. A common hydrate management strategy for gas-condensate systems is to avoid hydrate formation using a thermodynamic inhibition strategy. Towards end of field life, costs associated with inhibiting produced water can increase OPEX and CAPEX. The reduced production and increased costs associated with hydrate avoidance can create economic pressure to discontinue production. An alternative to this is to consider a commercial risk-based hydrate management strategy, which can result in considerable OPEX and CAPEX savings, making marginal developments economic. A case study on the adoption of a successful risk-based hydrate management strategy is presented. The goal was to maximise production from a declining asset to deliver incremental business value. Historically a hydrate avoidance strategy had been used; to continue with hydrate avoidance would have needed further capital outlay to manage the produced water from the declining reservoir. It was determined that during normal operation, hydrate risk could be managed without the need for continuous injection of a hydrate inhibitor. Further, in the event of an unplanned shutdown, where the hydrate risk is greater, it was also demonstrated that the production system could be restarted with minimal intervention.