At Lacq, with the PERL, Total takes another step toward managing methane emissions

New technologies for the detection and quantification of greenhouse gases have been tested in a secure industrial environment.

At Total, curbing global warming and achieving our ambition for carbon neutrality by 2050 means managing and reducing the volume of greenhouse gases (GHG) produced by our activities, particularly the production of oil and gas.

Methane is next up in the firing line. Why? Because it is a powerful GHG with a Global Warming Potential (GWP) at least 25 times that of CO2 over 100 years. Rapidly finding solutions to reduce methane emissions is a major stake for the Group and an unprecedented challenge for the R&D teams.

Against this backdrop, the TADI (Total Anomaly Detection Initiatives) platform at the Platform for Experimental Research in Lacq (PERL) affirms its role as a crucial tool for the Group R&D department to run GHG detection and quantification tests in a secure industrial environment. 

located on the Lacq Pilot Platform (PPL) at the PERL, TADI acquired a site to test and qualify innovative gas detection and quantification technologies. Its equipment, taken from the dismantled installations of our old plant (pipes, valves, tanks, columns, wellheads, flares, etc.), makes it a realistic and modular industrial theater where we can re-enact, in safe conditions, a large number of the scenarios obtained from feedback from the field.

At the end of September, for the second year running, TADI hosted the environmental campaign by the Air Quality Laboratory (AQL), led by our Refining-Chemicals division. In 2019, the aim was to test a wide range of promising technologies. This year, the campaign focused on a shortlisted few developed in the R&D department, such as the development of the AUSEA drone, or by the leading startups identified last year.

The challenge for this edition lay in detecting, measuring and quantifying very low-flow methane releases. Successful bet for AUSEA, the new fixed and autonomous micro-sensors and optical technologies!