Methane reduction in the gastransportation system

Because methane is one of the greenhouse gases the gastransportation company in The Netherlands, Gasunie, started a program for reduction of losses of methane. First a study has been made to identify all the sources of methane in the gastransportation grid. Major sources are venting, maintenance, starting gas turbines and gas driven actuators. The loss of natural gas in 1989 was 0.015% of the total throughput. After that a program has been started to establish the technical possibilities to reduce the emissions and to estimate the costs related to emission reduction. In addition a field test has been carried out in 1991 to investigate the economic and technical feasibility of recompression. This means that in case of repair or maintenance the content of natural gas of one or more pipeline sections will not be vented anymore but will be pumpt over in another section. During the test we saved about 1.1 million m3 of natural gas and about $120.00