The gas industry must ensure an outstanding level of health and safety for its employees, contractors and society as a whole. The Group’s focus is crosswise, covering health and labour safety topics in the mid and downstream sectors on a variety of dimensions such as requirements to operate safely networks with natural gas, hydrogen and blends. A key ally of the gas industry for a timely detection of malfunctioning is the procedure of odorising gases.

The group collects data on accidents, sharing experiences and figures. Technical and organisational solutions are discussed and are frequently identified by the experts as best practices, to deliver valuable insights on how to keep implementing effective strategies for incidents and accidents prevention.

MARCOGAZ is examining the applicability of existing operational procedures, equipment and safety measures for the acceptance of new gases (with particular focus on H2 and CO2) or if modifications or replacements are requested. MARCOGAZ proposes alternative solutions to guarantee the safety of the workers who oversee operating installations delivering new gases, while remaining in compliance with legislation.

A major resource for preventing incidents and accidents is odorization which enables an early detection of malfunctioning, acting as “warning agent” and allows to put in place reparative measures. The process consists of injecting a chemical agent, an odorant, that adds a smell to the gas, turning it easily recognisable.

The odorisation process brings specific challenges that the industry is addressing. In particular, precision is key in order to inject the exact amount of odorant. A pre-defined quantity must be injected within a relatively narrow range. Additionally, the injection of odorant requires a permanent control and verification of the concentration level.

The injection of new gases into the network brings added complexity. When preparing the network to accept new gases — biomethane, hydrogen, and synthetic gases — additional verification efforts are necessary to ensure that the odorisation process remains fully effective and that the same level of safety is guaranteed. It is also important to ensure that no “masking effect”, which could potentially be triggered by other components, is present. There is no single process for odorising gases, since different approaches have been implemented across Europe. MARCOGAZ conducts benchmarking by collecting information from its members to keep a track record of the operational data, best practices and experiences.