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2 local companies featured in emissions report Minimizing methane
and kalea hall
YOUNGSTOWN
The Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, released a report that highlighted companies that developed technologies and services for the emerging methane mitigation industry. Methane is a greenhouse gas where each molecule has 84 times the impact on the Earth’s climate than a molecule of carbon dioxide. The oil and gas sector is the nation’s largest industrial source of methane emissions, and is estimated to be worth $1.8 billion, according to the report. Methane emissions occur in all segments of the natural gas supply chain from production and processing, transmission and storage, and distribution.
The report identified Hoerbiger in Girard and the Dearing Compressor and Pump Co. in Youngstown for providing rod-packing seals. In the nation’s natural gas system, compressors are used to pump natural gas through the pipelines. Rod-packing seals prevent gas from escaping.
However, the report was inaccurate with Hoerbiger’s operations in Girard. Based in Switzerland, Hoerbiger is the parent company of its Girard location, Altronic LLC.
Founded in 1953, Altronic was owned by the Beeghly family until it was purchased by Hoerbiger in 2009 and was rebranded as Altronic: Hoerbiger Engine Solutions. The company, which employs 150 people, manufactures ignition systems and digital instruments that are used on natural gas-fired reciprocal engines that power compressors.
Altronic does not provide rod-packing seals, but another division of Hoerbiger does, said Chuck Cooper, the technical and marketing communications manager of Altronic. That division, Hoerbiger Service, does not operate in Ohio, he added.
On the other hand, Altronic’s products do work to reduce methane emissions in other ways.
“The better the engine is running, the better it reduces emissions,” Cooper said.
Ignition systems and digital instruments make up about two-thirds of Altronic’s business, said David Bell, senior vice president of aftermarket sales and service.
Additionally, natural gas is often flared, or burn, in regions such as North Dakota’s Bakken shale play, where it’s more costly to transport it than what it’s worth. On the other hand, oil rigs are powered by diesel engines, but the fuel is expensive especially with transporting it to the site. Altronic manufactures a GTI Bi-Fuel system that serves as an add-on feature for diesel engines to use natural gas without any modifications. That reduces the amount of diesel needed to power drilling operations.
Cooper said its GTI Bi-Fuel system reduces more methane emissions than providing rod-packing and dry seal replacements to compressors. The company manufacturers five to 10 systems each month.
“Rather than methane recapture, it’s methane re-purposing,” Bell said.
Rick Dearing, president of Dearing, and his sister, Becky, both felt being featured in the report identifies them as being a part of the industry. Dearing builds the compressor packages for companies using different components. The compressor compresses gas and is driven by an electric motor or a natural gas engine.
“We are taking the original manufacturers’ components and building a system to [specification] for a specific use,” Wall said.
Altronic is actually one of Dearing’s suppliers.
In addition to using rod-packing seals, Dearing also offers vapor recovery units, which capture the methane before it goes into the air.
“It is all stuff going on in the industry because of the desire to reduce the methane emissions,” Dearing said.
Both Wall and Dearing stressed that reducing methane emissions is not new because of the shale boom and that the need to do so was always on the radar.
But what they both attribute to the shale boom is what has happened at the company since the boom hit.
“It just so happened that the shale boom kind of brought us back home, but we have been doing natural gas since the ’60s,” Dearing said.
Dearing, which primarily serves Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia companies, expanded from about 40 employees in 2006 to 250 today, and they are still in search of skilled machine assemblers, welders and a variety of professional positions such as QC inspectors, buyers and engineers. Dearing’s facilities, which surround Midlothian Boulevard and Simon Road, went from 26,000 to 126,000 square feet.
“We have expanded and expanded and expanded,” Dearing said. “We want to get a manageable level. Now we are fine-tuning our processes to do what we do more efficiently and more competitively.”