Can You Spot These Differences?

• Oil & Gas,Pipeline

Can You Spot These Differences?

There are plenty of puddles, but not all are brine.

Précis
  • Problem: Distinguish brine leaks from freshwater puddles.
  • Solution: Spectral signature, not visual observation.
  • Benefit: Detect leaks early, minimize financial & environmental impacts.

Whether as a kid or with one, we’ve all spent time in a waiting room trying to find the seven differences between two seemingly identical pictures in a magazine. Depending on the publication, some differences may be more evident than others, but there’s always one last difference that’s trickiest to discern.

Ask anyone in oil & gas; they’ll tell you the same when looking for leaks. Liquid hydrocarbon leaks have their own unique physical characteristics to spot, but harder to identify are produced water leaks — and costlier if you don’t. The high salinity of brine leaks causes increased environmental damage, sterilizing land and waterbodies, resulting in greater remediation costs than oil spills.

Satelytics found this produced water leak.

Satelytics found this produced water leak.

But how do you find brine leaks without a handy answer key in the back of a magazine?

Satelytics takes the guesswork out of spotting produced water leaks. Our spectral analysis isolates the signatures of specific substances and their intensity, thus being able to differentiate between brine and a pool of rain — both of which look identical to the human eye — with a high degree of accuracy. Satelytics’ solution offers an efficient alternative to manned overflights, removing the reliance on the human eye to spot water pooling and the subsequent tasking of a separate crew to go into the field to confirm it’s actually a brine leak.

A recent conversation I had with an operations foreman in the Bakken highlights the difficulty identifying produced water spills under winter conditions, which come and go for months. These cycles of melting and freezing create meltwater — indistinguishable from brine when viewed from an airplane. Satelytics’ Constant Vigilance™ monitoring alerts our customers to produced water leaks and spills with 95% accuracy year-round.

Distinguishing produced water leaks with melting snow background.

Distinguishing produced water leaks with melting snow background.

Our high-resolution satellite imagery data source enables us to identify leaks down to a square foot. These small leaks may not be recognized by SCADA technologies and occur on remote gathering systems that often receive less monitoring investment and attention.



Satelytics finds leaks in their infancy and directs remediation efforts to the exact location — saving time, money, and resources. Done playing “spot-the-difference?” Let us show you the answers.

Interested in our newsletter?