An Evaluation of Energy Recovery Potential from Flare Gases on Offshore Oil and Gas Facilities

Gas flaring in the oil and gas industry is a process of burning excess natural gas in the atmosphere. It happens at the oil and gas onshore and offshore producing platform and its processing plant. As such, there is considerable amount of natural gas being wasted. It would be highly desirable to recover energy from flared natural gas to generate electricity especially in the offshore setting where electricity is not readily available. Hence, more attention should be focused on the effective utilization of flared natural gas in oil and gas offshore platforms. The energy recovery system, as one of the promising techniques, has been attracting increased attention to generate electricity from flared natural gas in the Duyong Central Processing Platform (DCPP). In this study, a simulation model has been developed by using the HYSYS software to predict the potential energy in terms of power generated from gas flaring in DCPP by using a microturbine. The principle focus that has been put forward is to recover and evaluate the potential energy from gas flaring where the case study is set at Duyong Central Processing Platform. Currently, the total amount of gas being burned at DCPP is amounted to 1.56MMscf/d. A total of 244kW of power could be generated with the aid of the simulation model. A thorough economic evaluation has been done based on the power generated and the capital required for the system setup. It is concluded that the energy recovery system is highly desirable where an amount of RM217,344 could be saved annually over a payback period of 7 years. It is recommended that an energy recovery system consists of a microturbine were installed in Duyong Central Processing Platform to utilise the gas flaring