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Today, on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Oil & Gas Middle East is highlighting one of the many women in oil and gas who stood out with remarkable contributions to her field.
In our June 2020 issue, Esra Al Hosani, a technology specialist at ADNOC Offshore, spoke about her research on the circular economy and how it could be practically applied in the UAE, specifically to ADNOC.
In her thesis from the University of Cambridge, she considered how oil producers could tackle real sources of waste to boost sustainability and collaboration, using the circular economy to maximise resources.
“So far the concept of the circular economy is mostly theoretical,” Al Hosani says. “There is not much practical research, so I decided to try a practical, real-life scenario in the oil and gas industry to study the typical value chain of the oil barrel and see if we can really maximize the value of oil.”
In her study, Al Hosani contemplates a way to use waste gas and waste water regularly produced during oil production, using ADNOC Offshore as her case study.
“One issue is our waste stream, specifically flared gas and produced water” Al Hosani says. “The oil and gas industry is particularly interesting with regards to energy and water, because it is possibly the only industry that not only uses water, but produces it in mass quantities, and calls it waste. Water can never be ‘waste’. And then they call it waste gas. Energy is never ‘waste’. They are only waste if you limit their potential to your current value chain.”
For many countries, the value chain for gas produced as a by-product of oil production ends with flaring. In a ranking of 2018 gas flaring volume, The World Bank revealed Russia as the world’s top flarer, followed by Iraq (ranked second) and Iran (3). Oman (11), Saudi Arabia (12), the UAE (24), Qatar (27), and Kuwait (29) are all among the top 30 flarers. However, in proportion to the amount of oil produced, Gulf nations on average flare less gas than other countries because they are so rich in oil.
“In my model, you produce the gas, you use it to power water treatment facilities, and then you ship the clean water—using the same tankers already transporting oil—to places in need,” she says. “I studied Cape Town as a recipient of water because they have a major hub for oil tankers. Our oil tankers go there anyway on their way to other places.”
“Circular economy is an emerging concept, but it is lagging in many industries because it is daring. It is a big concept,” she says. “The biggest hurdle is that it depends on others, and no one wants to depend on others, especially when developing a company’s strategy. You cannot just depend on others, because that means a lot of work and a lot of alignment. This is why it is lagging.”
