Flaring and Venting Services for the Oil and Gas Industry

INCREASED FLARE EMISSIONS CALCULATION ACCURACY

Reporting correct quantities of carbon dioxide and methane flowing through the vents and / or flares relies on accurate flare and vent gas metering. Recent research and analysis undertaken by TÜV SÜD has uncovered significant discrepancies in the expectation of performance, leading to potential costly emissions miscalculations, reputational damage and safety issues.

Visit our online calculator tool and input your flare system data to see if you receive the expected CE and DRE

Flares are necessary to quickly dispose of hydrocarbon gas in emergencies. In an ideal world, flare meters would read undisturbed flows and be frequently calibrated. However, as installations are typically in locations with limited space and access, and removal would require process shut down, little to no maintenance and calibration is performed.

Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to model installation effects and flow profiles, disturbances and biases can be visualised and analysed to develop a more accurate correction factor.

Flare-SURE™ Flare Modelling

Correct operation and reporting of the flare and its emissions requires confidence in the flare meter flow rate and knowledge of the flare tip efficiency. Factors that impact the performance include wind conditions, tip design and current state, flare gas flow rate and flare gas composition.

Using a 3D CFD model, flow and wind conditions can be simulated to predict the combustion efficiency (CE) and the destruction and removal efficiency (DRE) over a wide range of operating conditions, plus can provide valuable insights into potential safety issues.

Flare SURE CFD Flare Modelling

Flare SURE CFD Flare Tip Safety Concern

What are the advantages of using CFD in flare management?

Compared to physical verification (which in most cases cannot be performed), CFD is significantly cheaper and easier to undertake. The CFD model can determine the CE & DRE of individual flares and provide insight into how these could be optimised. The analysis can predict when flare gas flowrates are too low which can give rise to internal combustion, and in the extreme case, flashback to the drum resulting in catastrophic failure.

Traceable and Transparent Flare Metering

Available as a flow computer module or in the cloud, Flare-SURE provides transparent and verifiable flow rate calculations for flare metering systems.

Knowing the density and viscosity of the flare gas to compute the Reynolds number is crucial to calculate correction factors. However, in most installations, the density and viscosity of flare gas is not continuously monitored, and this could lead to a high uncertainty in the meter correction factor that is applied. Flare-SURE uses a transparent and traceable calculation, and processes multiple data points such as path velocity, flare temperature, flare pressure and gas chemical composition, to calculate the standard volume flow, the actual volume flow and mass flow. As a result, the accuracy of the meter is improved, uncertainty can be modelled in real-time, and emissions can be confidently calculated, reported, and in many cases reduced.

Add your data to our FlareSURE demo tool and calculate your CE and DRE

Our FlareSURE online demo tool enables you to input your actual data such as path velocity, meter temperature, meter pressure, wind speed and gas composition to calculate CE, DRE and CO₂ emissions.

"With CFD, we can simulate complex problems for clients, often much faster than physical testing, to deliver real added value and aid with decision-making. Our track record speaks for itself. We helped a global oil & gas operator save millions by uncovering a hidden issue in their flow metering system. Imagine what we can do for you."

Marc Laing, Head of Computational Fluid Dynamics and Modelling
MEng Chemical & Process Engineering

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