Reutilization of flare gas for energy recovery in oil and gas operations

Flaring is the controlled burning of natural gas in the course of routine oil and gas production operations. This burning occurs at the end of a flare stack or boom. During flaring, the burned gas generates mainly water vapor and carbon dioxide. Gas being flared may come from a variety of sources. It may be excess to that which can be supplied commercially to customers, unburned process gas from the processing facilities, vapors collected from the tops of tanks as they are being filled and from process upsets, equipment changeover or maintenance. Occasionally, a production shutdown may require the temporary flaring of all the gas stored on or arriving at a facility, to release high pressure and avoid a tragic situation occurring.
Flaring constitutes a hazard to human health, and is a contributor to the worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide. Flaring emits methane and other volatile organic compounds as well as sulfur dioxide and other sulfur compounds, which are known to worsen asthma and other respiratory problems. It is in the company’s interest to minimize the amount of gas being flared.
This project is aim to evaluate potential energy recovered from gas reutilization facility. The concept used in this project is to store the flaring gas in storage tank. After achieving certain amount, the gas will be flow into gas reutililzation facility consist of microturbine and compressor. The simulation of gas reutilization is being done using Aspen Hysys 2006 simulation software. Assuming natural gas flowing at constant rate of 0.75 MMSCFD, an amount of 217kW to 225kW of energy is produced.