BusinessReport.com

At the nation’s second-largest refinery, the search is on for “fugitives.”

Hidden somewhere amid the maze of more than 400,000 pipes and valves at ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge refinery and adjacent chemical plant is the occasional leak. But when the task sprawls across 2,250 acres, the mission is clear. Find the most efficient and effective way to address the problem.

This is why ExxonMobil invested $100,000 in a highly sophisticated infrared video camera capable of spotting these leaks—known in refinery-speak as “fugitives”—that can’t be seen by the naked eye. The technology has proven impressively effective in cutting by half the time and manpower needed for leak detection.

“These are like fancy night goggles,” Dave Markwordt, environmental engineer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says. The infrared camera looks like a camcorder and shows a leak as a ghostly plume. “It is impressive technology. As an engineer, it’s pretty impressive to me.”

The camera’s international manufacturer, FLIR Systems, specializes in thermal imaging in everything from airborne observation to drug interdiction to ground-based security. Allen Frechette, vice president of marketing in FLIR’s commercial vision systems, says it’s the same technology used by the Navy’s elite SEAL teams but tailored for refineries.

Markwordt says the imager has been so effective, the EPA rule on monitoring leaks will be amended as early as next month to also allow use of this technology.

The current detection method is so labor intensive and time consuming that every component, which can measure upwards to a million in some plants, has to be individually inspected quarterly. But he says the camera is so visually sensitive that it can pan entire sections of an operation and reveal several leaks without lessening environment protection. It can even help facilities find and fix emissions that aren’t regulated, further adding to the environmental benefit.

When ExxonMobil receives a complaint about odor now, Derek Reese, senior section supervisor of ExxonMobil’s air section and environmental department, says they can find the problem faster. It also allows them to inspect for leaks more often. Until the EPA finalizes the amendment, he says they’ll use both methods.

“We’re using the camera above and beyond current regulations,” Reese says. “We’re tackling the regulatory program in a new way, but it’s a better way of doing it. We love every hydrocarbon, and everything within the plant we try to use to our maximum ability. We try to put them into value-added products. If we can’t make it into something useful, we use it as fuel in our process furnaces.”

To help amend the federal rule, ExxonMobil has been in a six-month joint study with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to demonstrate the camera’s effectiveness compared to the current detection method. Additionally, Reese says they’ve been working several years with the American Petroleum Institute to help make the technology user-friendly for practical application.

DEQ also uses the camera to spot hydrocarbon emissions in structures like tanks and barges in relation to Baton Rouge’s ozone issues, says Mike Algero, surveillance division administrator. Algero says they’ve observed the same advantages with this technology.

“It’s very important and has been very successful for us so far, allowing us to see much broader areas,” he says. “It was particularly useful after Hurricane Katrina where we flew over facilities looking for leaks. We think it’s a fantastic tool for us.”