When ChampionX acquired emissions monitoring company Scientific Aviation last year, the goal was to scale up affordable methane detection for oil and gas operators.

ChampionX combined its expertise with Scientific Aviation’s innovation capabilities to deliver cost-effective solutions for leak detection, emissions quantification and air quality research.

In an exclusive video interview with Hart Energy, Erin Tullos, who previously headed research and development efforts at Scientific Aviation and is now the director of RD&E at ChampionX, explained how the company is supporting oil and gas operators in their net-zero and sustainability ambitions as energy transition continues gaining momentum.

“We recognize that while we need to do our part to reduce emissions across our product portfolio business, we noticed that our opportunity to enable our breadth of customers to reduce their emissions effectively is much bigger,” Tullos told Hart Energy’s Faiza Rizvi.

She continued, “We have quite a number of customers who have made goals around methane intensities or net-zero and what they really need is ways to credibly measure the emissions so they can demonstrate the reductions.”

As part of ChampionX’s effort, Tullos has been sharing information with current and potential customers on its continuous emissions monitoring platform and Scientific Aviation’s aerial and drone emissions monitoring capabilities. 

When it comes to methane emissions, the only thing that matters is “how much,” noted Tullos.

Even though technologies are able to help detect emission sources, it’s important to verify if emissions are being reduced. At ChampionX, Tullos said the focus of low-emission technologies is measuring the quantity of emission being reduced and how that changes over time.

For instance, Scientific Aviation’s SOOFIE system can monitor oil and gas facilities, 24/7 through a solar-powered onsite detection unit that leverages cloud-based servers and artificial intelligence for analysis and reporting. The system calculates the emission rate every 15 minutes, allowing operators to quickly understand if emissions have changed, marking the possible start of a leak.

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