The consequences, and how VOC emissions can be reduced

The Maritime business being part of the Crude oil value chain face a unique window of opportunity through minimizing losses of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), improving the Climate and the air we breathe whilst saving billions of dollars.

Around 70 million barrels of hydrocarbons –  In round figures equivalent of 10 mio tons of liquid oil, are lost yearly due to evaporation of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) during loading, storage and transportation of crude oil on ships. This is an environmental problem as well as a significant economic loss that represents a value of 3.0 to 3.5 billion USD annually.

VOCs are a large group of organic compounds. Several light hydrocarbons, such as methane, ethane and propane and especially methane is a potent greenhouse gas, contributing to climate change w. a GWP of 21 notably that GWP for CO2 is 1 whereas the non-methane fractions, known as NMVOC, react in the presence of sunlight with nitrous oxides and create a toxic ground level ozone and smog layer, which has detrimental environmental effects on vegetation and on human health, particularly on the eyes and lungs.

Bay Valves has co-invented the SuperSat system, which reduces GHG emissions and VOC loss and equally important provides transparency by continuously Monitoring, Reporting and Verification of the amount of VOC expelled directly from oil tankers to the atmosphere.

The crucial role of a high and constant crude oil tank pressure has been scrutinized in several scientific studies over the last 30 years and published by maritime stakeholders and authorities and an extract is available as a White paper by request.

We appreciate the huge effort being done by maritime stakeholders in bringing down the amount of GHG from burning fuel, and while actual solutions the coming years are being developed, the industry face a window of opportunity in bringing down GHG that escapes from Cargo tanks on tankers, implementing readily available solutions.

More about The SuperSat system

For additional information please contact:

Managing Director

Søren bay Jensen

sbj@bayvalves.com

+45 7022 1892