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Burn off flares.

Posted on 9/22/24 at 11:43 am
Posted by Tempratt
Member since Oct 2013
14871 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 11:43 am
I’ve always wondered why the product that’s being burned off isn’t sold.
Seems to me that revenue could be generated from this.

Guessing it’s not practical or they’d do that already.
Posted by Maderan
Member since Feb 2005
867 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 11:50 am to
It's a forced by product for oil drillers. The gas price in the west Texas oil fields is negative, meaning that the drillers have to pay people to take it.
Posted by loogaroo
Welsh
Member since Dec 2005
39118 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 11:51 am to
What about at DOW in Plaquemine?
Posted by Nump
Down da Bayou
Member since Sep 2021
185 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 11:55 am to
I’ve always wondered why they don’t have temporary containment paired with a stand-by boiler and turbine systems to take advantage of the burn and produce power for something. They could hold the excess product and burn at a designated time and feed the local grid. But that would all have to be put in place at a cost to the plant. It would have to be government mandated to actually be done.

That’s my completely process-ignorant take on it, anyway.
Posted by Privateer 2007
Member since Jan 2020
7631 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 11:59 am to
quote:

Dow plaquemine


Flares are to relieve pressure, excess gas etc.

They are to keep shite from exploding.

When process runs "off" there's almost always a lot of flaring.
Posted by White Roach
Member since Apr 2009
9666 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 12:00 pm to
(no message)
Posted by White Roach
Member since Apr 2009
9666 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 12:03 pm to
I think flares burning during normal operations indicate some type of upset in the process. There are certainly other reasons.
Posted by Privateer 2007
Member since Jan 2020
7631 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 12:11 pm to
quote:

flares during normal operations


Normal flares are small.

When there's an upset you usually know it.
Those are the times the flare is few hundred feet high.
Can hear across the river.
Loud.

You can be on the site 400m away and still feel the heat.
Posted by Privateer 2007
Member since Jan 2020
7631 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 12:12 pm to
We need a "run plant" engineer in here to give a better, more detailed explanation.
Posted by el Gaucho
He/They
Member since Dec 2010
58288 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 12:14 pm to
Remember how it was cool 2 weeks ago and now that the plants are releasing all this greenhouse gas it’s over 100 degrees again? Scary how people still deny climate change is happening
Posted by Merica
'Merica
Member since Mar 2013
1113 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 12:23 pm to

This post was edited on 1/31/25 at 10:43 pm
Posted by thegreatboudini
Member since Oct 2008
7072 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 12:27 pm to
I have built many rejection models to understand profitability in this space.

Yes, they could sell it, no, they couldn't make money on it. Simple as that.
Posted by DaBike
Member since Jan 2008
10295 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 12:37 pm to
Often, the reason for this is the lack of sufficient midstream capacity. As a result, producers prioritize their profits from oil production and burn the excess gas. There is usually little to no profit in the gas produced.
Posted by turkish
Member since Aug 2016
2244 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 12:39 pm to
These facilities are usually optimized to an extreme degree. Trust me when I say that NOTHING is flared intentionally that a penny of profit could be made from. What’s more, in fact, many petrochemical sites will take significant losses and downgrades to avoid flaring.
Posted by STATigerFan
St. Amant, LA
Member since Sep 2019
193 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 1:35 pm to
Dow Plaquemine had a steam and condensate upset over the last week. Steam and condensate are vital to the plant’s operations so they had to shut down. That’s what you see burning in the flares, they are either holding where they are and keeping things hot or they are actually starting up and have to flare the off spec product until it’s sellable.
Posted by greenbean
USAF Retired - 31 years
Member since Feb 2019
6045 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 1:45 pm to
The flares in the oil fields in Kuwait are much bigger than anything I've seen stateside.
Posted by ChEgrad
Member since Nov 2012
3745 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 1:48 pm to
The “product” is likely an intermediate (unfinished product). When there is an upset In a continuous process, it may be cheaper to flare off the intermediate instead of shutting down the entire plant/refinery/process. Everything in a refinery is tied together, so if one part has an issue you have a choice- shut down the most of the refinery or flare that particular stream and keep what you can operating.
Posted by wfallstiger
Wichita Falls, Texas
Member since Jun 2006
14535 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 2:32 pm to
Back in the day - way back in the day - Baton Rouge looked to be on fire with all the burn offs, as well as Norco
Posted by Redbone
my castle
Member since Sep 2012
20499 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 2:35 pm to
quote:

Remember how it was cool 2 weeks ago and now that the plants are releasing all this greenhouse gas it’s over 100 degrees again? Scary how people still deny climate change is happening
Do you just write things down to prove how stupid you are or do to prove how stupid you are by writing things?
Posted by yakster
Member since Mar 2021
3343 posts
Posted on 9/22/24 at 2:37 pm to
Could be off spec product. Not worth trying to rerun it to get on spec.
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