[Seascamp]

If all is in balance, the flair stacks won?t be burning, only occasionally when there is compressor seal leak to be vented or some precipitate that gets in the gas field intake lines or there is a gulp of sour gas to be vented. Precipitate is like natural kerosene and can raise havoc if not vented. Example; the operators at P.T. Arun, Sumatra, were too busy playing Mahjong to note that about 5 thousand barrels of precipitate got sucked into the gas line and were headed to the LNG compression stages, disaster was in the making, I?m talking a 2km diameter kabooom, including several 100 meter diameter LNG spheres containing 800:1 compressed natural gas. An old hand (from Oklahoma) sprinted from the guest house to the control bunker, in his skivvies mind you, and slammed the emergency shutdown sequencer and just seconds later the flair stacks just gushed precipitate. It just rained kerosene and only seconds later, it would have been raining fire and I wouldn?t be here annoying you good people. I had never been in an upset like that before when about 200,000 hp of LNG compression machinery went in to surge (back pressure exceeds output pressure) and I thought it was an earthquake with all the growling and shaking going on. So in that instance the flair stacks acted as pressure vents but saved our butts. There was some piping and compression seal damage and the whole place stunk of precipitate, including ourselves, but we got back on stream in fairly quick order. Ha, ask me what I think of the game of Mahjong anymore.

Where there is long term flair stack burning it is usually a sign that some maintenance or process moves are needed and if in the US, the EPA fine meter is a runnin, big time. Alberta, Canada, seems to be more tolerant and, in my opinion, the flair stacks burn way too often and way too long. Same with the mid east.

Scamp