NOVENT® – Smart Thief Hatch Monitoring

Most oil and water storage tanks use thief hatches to prevent over-pressurization, but these hatches can release methane when they pop open due to excess pressure or are manually opened during truck loading. Often unmonitored, they are a major source of methane leaks on well sites. NOVENT® is a plug-and-play solution with tilt sensors that track each hatch’s status in real time, sending data to a cloud-connected module. Operators can view alerts and cumulative leak durations through a user-friendly dashboard.

Thief hatches are one of the largest source of methane leaks on a well site

Recent surveys indicate that thief hatches are too often left accidentally open. For average tank batteries, a cumulative thief hatch leak duration of 100 hours or more will vent VOCs in excess of 6 tons per year, whiсh is the limitation set by NSPS OOOO/OOOOa, leading to the shutdown of oil production for the remainder of the year, or the operators will have to pay hefty fines.

With NOVENT®, Cimarron has developed a plug-and-play solution made of individual inclinometers, completely wireless and battery operated, that communicate each thief hatch status in real time to a central module connected to the cloud. That information is then made available to operators through a dashboard displaying alerts as well as cumulative thief hatch leaks duration for a tank battery.

In addition, Cimarron can provide the full 360 PERFORMANCE MONITORING of the thief hatches and have fast response service crews address these alert and minimize the time thief hatches are left open. When on site, the service crews can troubleshoot the reasons why thief hatches will pop open randomly, identify plumping issues or liquid traps causing pressure drops, and remediate the problem.

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