BPCL : SO2 Emission Control & Monitoring System

BPCL has 35 furnaces at their Mumbai Corporate Office. While manufacturing

crude of various types, these furnaces emit SO2 (Sulphur Dioxide) in large

quantities, which is hazardous to health and to the overall environment. The

Refinery has implemented an Environmental Management System to ensure that the

surrounding environment is free of pollution. With the ever escalating prices of

crude, processing of High Sulphur opportunity crudes has increased in Refineries

all over the world. Hence it is necessary to implement systems, which would help

in effectively monitoring and controlling SO2 emissions.

Earlier, the monitoring was done manually. Data from four different systems

had to be compiled manually. By the time, the data used to get compiled it was

of no use as the emission had already happened and could not be controlled. To

eliminate and overcome the existing problems, the team came up with an

innovative idea to implement a system that would integrate with MES, Laboratory

Information Management system(LIMS), Fuel monitoring system, SAP etc, and store

data in a central repository.

Energy & Environment section in Technology department along with the help of

IT department (CSS) worked together and developed an integrated IT Solution

system with role based access model, enabling to streamline the processes,

improve productivity and empower users. The system is integrated with LIMS

(Laboratory Information Management System) to capture latest results of fuel and

with IP21 a real-time database system to capture Crude processed in plant units.

It is integrated with the fuel monitoring system & thus fuel quantities & types

of fuel are directly fed to the system. Currently, it has a database of 50

crudes (Sulphur content) which have been processed in the Refinery. For the

given date, all related data are fetched automatically from other systems and

shown to the user. After verification and based on the captured details SO2

emission value is calculated by the system. With the SO2 emission monitoring &

control system in place, the pollution levels with respect to SO2 will be

controlled through effective monitoring, thereby contributing to a better, more

pollution free environment.

M.D. Agrawal, DGM (IS REF)