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Needs for vapour recovery

The three main reasons for the recovery of gasoline and crude oil vapours are:

• drastic emission reduction of environmental hazardous substances

• increase of safety and mitigation of health risks

• recovery of valuable energy resources

Investments in vapour recovery

The economic motivation for vapour recovery is that gasoline vapours represent a significant quantity of valuable product. When not recovered, this gasoline will be lost to the atmosphere. A typical gasoline terminal has a recovery potential of 1.500 litres for every 1.000 m³ of transferred product.

Return on investment

The return on investment depends on whether the recovered product is taxed or not. If taxed, the practice by EU authorities is to refund the tax in order to avoid double taxation. This tax refund makes recovery an even better investment. It is not unusual for a Vapour Recovery Unit (VRU) to reach break-even in less than one year.

Environmental requirements

Vapours associated with the loading and transfer of gasoline consist of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s). Legislation enacted in the United States and European Union has set definite limits on the emissions of these VOC’s. Moreover, products such as crude oil, benzene and other chemicals are increasingly subject to legislation regarding VOC emissions.

Unless specified otherwise, all the VRU’s for gasoline services have a guaranteed maximum HC-emission of 10 g/m³. These VRU’s can also be made to conform to the stricter German and Danish regulations of maximum 150 mg/m³ excluding methane.

Second stage

The Aker Solutions Cool Sorption VRU's may even be fitted with a second stage system, reducing the emission levels to just 50 mg/m³ including methane.