Flare Gas Recovery Systems: An Essential Technology To Reduce Environmental Impact Of Oil And Gas Industry

Flaring of excess natural gas produced along with oil has been a common practice in the oil and gas industry to ensure operational safety. However, uncontrolled flaring leads to wastage of valuable natural resources and emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Flare gas recovery systems have emerged as an important technology to minimize flaring and maximize utilization of associated gas. This article discusses the need for flare gas recovery, working of different flare gas recovery systems and their benefits.

Need for flare gas recovery
Oil wells often produce natural gas along with crude oil. During production or transportation, if the volume of associated gas exceeds the gas handling or transportation capacity, the excess gas is flared to maintain well head pressure and ensure safety. However, uncontrolled flaring leads to wastage of valuable natural gas resource and emission of greenhouse gases like methane that have high global warming potential. It is estimated that about 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas is flared globally every year, contributing significantly to climate change. Recovering this flare gas through appropriate systems helps reduce wastage and emissions. It also generates additional revenue through sales of recovered gas. With growing emphasis on minimizing environmental impact, oil producers are increasingly investing in flare gas recovery systems.

Types of flare gas recovery systems
There are different types of Flare Gas Recovery Systems used by oil producers depending on field and operational conditions:

Basic recovery: The simplest system involves using vapor recovery units, compressors and pipelines to recover, compress and transport flare gas for sales or re-injection. It is suitable for fields with stable production levels.

Enhanced recovery: For fields with fluctuating production, more advanced systems like scrubbers, dehydrators and tank storage are used along with compressors to condition and reliably recover wet gas even during fluctuations.

Zero-flaring systems: The most advanced systems integrate real-time production data, advanced processing like gas-liquid separation etc to achieve near-zero flaring levels even during planned and unplanned shutdowns. Necessary equipment redundancy ensures continuous gas recovery.

Benefits of implementing flare gas recovery
Adopting appropriate flare gas recovery systems offers multiple technical, economic and environmental benefits:

Reduced wastage: By recovering up to 90% of flare gas, these systems help maximize utilization of natural resources.

Lower emissions: Recovered gas can offset use of other fossil fuels, helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 0.5 million tons annually for a typical facility.

Additional revenue: Sales of recovered flare gas can generate revenue of millions annually depending on recovery levels and gas prices.

Improved safety: Eliminating open flames from flaring improves on-site safety and reduces noise, light pollution etc.

Regulatory compliance: Many countries now mandate quantitative limits on flaring to curb emissions. Recovery systems help comply with such directives.

Operational optimization: Advanced real-time systems also provide production optimization insights through gathered data to enhance overall efficiency.

Challenges and the way forward
While flare gas recovery is gaining prominence, some challenges remain around technical feasibility of systems for marginal fields and fluctuating production. Retrofitting aging facilities also requires capital investments. Standardization of components and modular system designs now help address technical and cost barriers. Growing carbon pricing mechanisms also make recovery economically stronger. With concerted efforts, the oil and gas industry can significantly reduce flaring through optimized flare gas recovery practices to lower emissions footprint. New technologies like flare-to-power also offer newer avenues of utilizing recovered gas.

Uncontrolled gas flaring leads to wastage as well as emissions contributing to climate change. Flare gas recovery systems have emerged as an effective technology helping oil producers minimize flaring, while also generating revenues. Advanced real-time recovery optimized for different field conditions helps achieve near-zero flaring levels. Wider adoption of such systems especially for marginal fields can significantly curb the environmental impact of the hydrocarbon industry's operations. While challenges remain, strategies around standardization, modular designs and carbon pricing are making flare gas recovery a commercially viable and attractive proposition.