SPE-172240-MS

Unconventional Flare Gas Recovery Systems (FGRS)

Samusideen A Salu; Mohamed Soliman, and Nisar Ahmad K Ansari, Saudi Aramco
Copyright 2014, Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Saudi Arabia Section Annual Technical Symposium and Exhibition held in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, 21-24 April 2014.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleu m Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
This paper presents unconventional flare gas recovery schemes that do not include gas compressors to collect the routine daily
flared gas, to send it back to the process plant. The innovative recovery systems will provide significant capital and operating
cost savings by eliminating the installation and operation of gas compressor(s) as part of conventional FGRS. Two different
FGRS schemes without gas compressors were established, using only static equipment for the flared gas recovery. The first
scheme involves providing carefully sized pipe to flow-back the collected flare gas to the plant at the required pressure. This
scheme requires careful hydraulic simulation for the entire flare system network, to ensure that the recovery system will not
have any negative impact on the relief and flare systems thereby jeopardizing the safety of the entire plant and at the
same time ensure flow from the location of the flare line to the recovered gas destination. The second scheme includes the use
of a gas ejector with high pressure motive gas to boost low pressure flare gas to the intermediate pressure required to deliver
the gas back to the process. The case study of applying the established unconventional flare gas recovery system at Saudi
Aramcos Qatif North Plant, to continuously recover about 5MMscfd of valuable fuel gas, which is equivalent to 5,051
MMBtu/day in fuel energy savings was presented. The proposed FGRS schemes will minimize greenhouse gas emissions
and provide positive environmental benefits.
Introduction
Flare systems are essential parts of any oil and gas process plant. The flare systems, which consist of essentially flare headers
and laterals, liquid knock-out drums and flare stacks, serve as one of the last layers of protection for the entire plant, to safely
relieve pressure from plant equipment during an overpressure condition. As part of safety requirements, flare headers are
normally provided with continuous purging, to prevent vacuums within the system, keep air out of the system, and prevent
possible explosions.
The major component of any conventional FGR system is the gas compressor. It is required to compress the low pressure flare
gas to a pressure that can deliver the gas back to the process. The recovery gas compressors have recurring maintenance,
operating spare and reliability issues, similar to any other rotating equipment in a process plant. It would therefore be a very
attractive and economic venture if the use of a gas compressor can be eliminated from the FGR system without jeopardizing
performance and safety of the system. Toward this end, a detailed hydraulic analysis was performed as a case study for the
flare systems at one of Saudi Aramcos Plants, the Qatif Central Producing Facility, to evaluate the operating pressure limits of
both the flare gas as well as the process into which the recovered flare gas will be routed. The study revealed that it is feasible
to recover the continuous flared gas by connecting new piping from the flare system downstream of the flare knockout drum to
the suction of the atmospheric compressor and install water seal drums to enable a staging system, to allow emergency relief
gas flow into the flare stack. An alternative scheme was also evaluated using a gas ejector that can provide additional operating
flexibility and reliability to the system. For the Qatif case study, purge gas is taken from the fuel gas system, which is fed from
the sweet/sales gas grid. To ensure no air ingress into the flare headers, a minimum flow rate of purge gas must be
continuously maintained for each flare system at the plant. There are three (3) 100% flare systems: one High-Pressure (HP),
one Low-Pressure (LP) and one common Spare HP/LP at the plant complex. The Spare Flare can be used for either HP or LP
flaring during maintenance of any one of the LP/HP flares. Both the HP and Spare flare header have 60-in diameters while the
LP flare header has a 48-in diameter. Therefore, the normal continuous load to each flare is 2.5 MMscfd, which covers mainly
the fuel gas used for continuous purging of the flare headers plus some little gas flow from isolation valves in case of any
leakage. Therefore, about 5 MMscfd of total flared gas is available to be continuously collected and routed back to the suction

SPE-172240-MS

of atmospheric compressors at the plant. Figure-1 shows a schematic of the entire flare system arrangement at the Qatif
Central Producing Facility.
Figure-1: Schematic of Entire Flare System at Qatif Central Producing Facility

The two unconventional flare gas recovery schemes established and carefully evaluated through hydraulic and process
simulations using PIPERPHASE and HYSYS software respectively are described under the following subheadings:
Flow-Back Flare Gas Recovery System (Scheme-1)
In-depth evaluation of the process including hydraulic simulation in PIPEPHASE revealed that it is feasible to
continuously collect the entire 5 MMscfd purge gas and route the same back to the suction of the Atmospheric Compressors.
This can be achieved without installation of any conventional Flare Gas Recovery package which normally comprised of gas
compressors at the flare site. This flare gas recovery approach is possible based on the fact that there is an atmospheric
compression system at the plant with compressors suction pressure of 0.7 psig and about 40 MMscfd extra capacity to
accommodate the entire 5 MMscfd of the recovered purge gas. The flow scheme is also supported by the fact that the
atmospheric compressors receive suction gas from the Low Pressure Degassing Tanks (LPDTs), Crude Stabilizers and TEG
Reboiler Overhead, all of which are operating at the same pressure range of 2-3 psig as the HP & LP flare KO Drums. Flare
gas recovery at the plant only requires the means to transport the gas from the flare site down to the suction of the atmospheric
compressors, at the gas plant (a total distance of approximately 1.8 km) within the limited differential pressure. Appropriate
pipe sizes within the available differential pressures were determined by careful analysis of the hydraulic simulation results.
The results show that 2.5 MMscfd of the HP flare gas at 3 psig will arrive at 1.6 psig at the gas plant using 10 pipe. While 2.5
MMscfd of the LP flare gas at 2 psig can be transported separately in a 12 pipe size, to arrive at about 1.4 psig at the gas
plant. Separate piping was selected for HP and LP flare gas to take the advantage of 1 psig of the HP gas over LP gas, which
would have been otherwise lost if the two are to be comingled at the flare KO drums location. The PIPEPHASE simulation
also predicted average velocities of 46 ft/s and 33 ft/s in the selected 10 HP and 12 LP lines respectively. These velocities
are within the acceptable minimum and maximum velocity limits specified by engineering standards. A 10% margin was
added to the estimated total length of the piping to cover frictional losses in fittings, bends, etc.
In the proposed recovery system, water seal drums will be provided between the flare gas off take points and the flare stacks.
This is to maintain a slight positive pressure in the flare headers and prevent an undesirable vacuum condition in the headers

SPE-172240-MS

that could draft in air from the flare tip into the headers and the proposed flare recovery lines. In addition, the flare stacks in
Qatif plant are provided with molecular seals. Whenever the amount of gas relieved into a flare system exceeds the capacity of
the recovery system (2.5 MMscfd for each line), a pressure/flow control valve on the flare recovery line will act to maintain
flow at 2.5 MMscfd. Then pressure in the flare header will build up until it exceeds the back pressure created by the liquid
level in the water seal drum and this will break the liquid seal to allow excess gas volume to begin to flow to the flare stack.
The proposed recovery scheme is illustrated by the flow scheme in Figure-2.

Figure-2: Flow scheme of Flow-back FGR without Gas Compressor at Qatif Plant

The flow-back FGR scheme described above lacks operating flexibility due to very narrow margins of differential pressure
between the recovered gas at flare KO drums and at the suction of the atmospheric gas compressors. This could result in flow
assurance issues in case of any minor fluctuation of the operating pressures in the flare KO Drums. An alternative approach to
address this shortfall is to raise the operating pressure of each flare knockout drum by about 2-3 psig. This change in the flare
operating pressure would impact the back pressures of all relief sources and would require a comprehensive relief valve audit.
Therefore, an ejector-based flare gas recovery system using a gas ejector with high pressure motive gas, to boost the low
pressure flare gas to an intermediate pressure required to deliver the gas to the suction of the atmospheric compressor was
established.
Ejector Based Flare Gas Recovery System (Scheme-2)
An alternative scheme was developed by utilizing a suitable ejector to collect the 5 MMscfd of continuous flare gas at 2 psig,
using 2 MMscfd of available HP gas as motive gas. The process scheme was modelled, simulated and confirmed possible
using proprietary software. To this end, a recovery system utilizing HP Gas at 325 psig as motive gas in an ejector to
transport the gas from the flare site to the atmospheric compressor location was established. Figure-3 shows the calculated
flow rates and pressures for the feeds and outlet streams of the ejector. Figure-4 shows the flow scheme for the Ejector Based
Flare Gas Recovery System.

SPE-172240-MS

Figure-3: Calculated Flow rates and Pressure for the Qatif FGRS Ejector

Figure-4: Flow scheme of Ejector-Based FGR at the Qatif Plant

Conclusion
There are multiple economic benefits of the established FGR schemes. First, it will recover about 5MMscfd of valuable fuel
gas, which is equivalent to 5,051 MMBtu/day in fuel energy saving. Second, the system will operate without any energy
consuming or rotating equipment (all installations are static equipment, i.e., no moving parts). The system will utilize energy
that would have been otherwise wasted in anti-surge control of the atmospheric compressors due to low gas throughput of the
atmospheric compressors since plant start-up. Operating the atmospheric compressors with closed anti-surge control valve will
improve reliability and life span of the compressors. The flare recovery system will also improve reliability and life span of the
flare tips, thereby reducing the recurring cost of flare tip replacements. The proposed system will minimize greenhouse gas
emissions and provide positive environmental impact. Finally, operating the established unconventional FGR systems at Qatif
plant will provide operating experience base within Saudi Aramco for other facilities to adopt.