Managing odours from bulk oil operations at the Port authority of Ventspils Freeport

Year: 2021

Location: Estonia

Application: Oil & Gas

Integrator: ELLE – SIA ESTONIAN, LATVIAN & LITHUANIAN ENVIRONMENT (www.environment.lv)

Final User: Port Authority of Ventspils Freeport

The Ventspils Freeport hosts three different oil storage terminals managed by three operators.

The loading and unloading operations generated a high number of odour-related complaints from citizens of the port’s local communities, which are oftentimes due to the lack of streamlined operations.

Given that the dominant wind comes from the north of the Baltic sea, it carries these odours south towards the city.

Ventspills Municipality decided to introduce new regulations requesting oil terminals to install online odour monitoring systems to ensure that odour levels are below 5 OU/m3 at the fence line of the port’s terminals. Should such odour levels be reached, immediate actions will be taken by the offending terminal.

Additionally, the Municipality requires access to all data from these monitoring systems to discriminate between and identify the different oil odour types for more efficient identification of odour sources and better remediation protocols.

The implementation of an Ellona WT1 AQMS network, consisting of :

• nine WT1 units each with H2S, Mercaptans and four different MOX sensors
• nine weather station units

This solution was selected by the customer because –  as contrary to most competitors in the market – Ellona has developed a unique expertise in MOS sensors.

Metal Oxide Sensors sensors are key in accurately measuring odour intensity and quality as:

• H2S, RSH, and NH3 sensors alone are not capable of accurately representing odour complexity.

Moreover, the integration of the data from Ellona Intelligent Platform is made available through the built-in API, in the Municipality’s dashboard and control panel.

In order to optimize the monitoring network, a preliminary study was conducted with the help of our local partner ELLE, to determine the optimal locations for the WT1’s based on various terminals characteristics (of the three different terminals) and prevailing winds directions. Each terminal was monitored with three WT1 unit.

The monitoring network is operational 24/7 and serves as an alarm system.

Thanks to Ellona’s API built into our platform, Ventspils Municipality is able to import the data into its own dashboard with complete monitoring of the port’s activity. The Municipality is then able to monitor, online, odour intensity at the terminal fence lines where the measurements are correlated to EN13725 standards.

The Municipality is also able to identify online odour type and quality and to take immediate and targeted actions against the offending terminal or tanker that set off the alarm.