Predictive flare tip combustion behaviour for Ithaca Energy

Client Name: Ithaca Energy

Contract Title: Flare-SURE Cloud Based Service for Ithaca Energy

Industry: Oil & Gas

Profile: Plays a pivotal role in meeting the current and future energy needs of the UK.

Business challenge: Ensuring compliance with emerging regulatory frameworks on flaring and methane emissions

Our solution: Flare-SURE flare meter optimisation tool

Business benefits: More accurate greenhouse gas reporting, better emissions performance insights, reduced compliance risk, and increased confidence in flare system behaviour under real operating conditions

Ithaca Energy is a leading independent oil and gas operator in the UK North Sea, focused on safe, efficient and environmentally responsible production. As part of its strategy, the company is committed to improving emissions transparency, optimising operational performance, and ensuring compliance with emerging regulatory frameworks on flaring and methane emissions.

To support these goals, Ithaca engaged TÜV SÜD for Flare-SURE to support transparent, accurate and verifiable calculations of flare efficiency, emissions, and destruction/removal performance on their Cygnus flare tips.

Business challenge: Ensuring compliance with regulatory frameworks on flaring and methane emissions

Ithaca required robust, auditable emissions calculations aligned with recognised standards. They needed a cloud-based solution that could integrate with their existing SCADA/PI systems and was capable of provide real-time estimations of combustion efficiency, destruction/removal efficiency (DRE) of methane, and resulting CO₂ and CH₄ emissions. Providing a transparent, traceable and standards-based assessment of emissions prediction was of critical importance.

TÜV SÜD solution: Flare-SURE flare meter optimisation tool

The team at TÜV SÜD developed a bespoke Flare-SURE module using a structured, standards-based engineering methodology specific to the operation of the Cygnus platform flares.

Key components included:

Full mapping of all required inputs from HP and LP flare lines, including mass flow, nitrogen injection, pressure, temperature, wind speed and detailed hydrocarbon composition.
Development of a comprehensive calculation engine, incorporating additional calculation outputs to support Ithaca Energy.

One of the key challenges in emissions prediction from flares is that gas composition is typically unavailable. Both flares were also subject to nitrogen dilution in the systems. To overcome this, TÜV SÜD worked with Ithaca to understand the flow process of their system and created specific logic for nitrogen dilution and gas composition to ensure accurate representation of diluted gas compositions in line with current accepted reporting requirements. This allowed a much more representative prediction of the flare tip combustion behaviour.

A structured data‑flow architecture was also provided detailing every calculation to ensure full traceability of every calculation step as well as highly detailed data‑flow schematics and fully referenced calculation pathways to provide a transparent end-to-end methodology that Ithaca could audit and trust.

Business benefits: More accurate greenhouse gas reporting and better emissions performance insights

Accurate, real-time emissions quantification (CO₂, CH₄, CO₂e), supporting environmental compliance and internal performance tracking.
Improved transparency and auditability, enabling Ithaca to justify assumptions and calculation pathways during regulatory reviews.
Ability to evaluate flare performance under varying wind, composition and process conditions, promoting better operational decision-making.
Enhanced understanding of combustion and destruction efficiency, supporting improvements in emissions reduction strategies.

The module was built with scalability in mind, allowing Ithaca to add new flare tips, adjust inputs, and expand to future assets. The comprehensive reports also gave Ithaca a clear blueprint for implementation, reducing engineering integration time. The module’s structure creates a foundation for future advanced analytics, including predictive emissions modelling and machine‑learning‑based optimisation.

Through this project, TÜV SÜD provided Ithaca Energy with a scientifically rigorous, standards‑aligned, transparent and configurable flare efficiency module, enabling:

More accurate greenhouse-gas reporting
Better emissions performance insights
Reduced compliance risk
Increased confidence in flare system behaviour under real operating conditions

Flare-SURE flare meter optimisation tool

Could Flare-SURE help you improve your operations? Contact our experts to learn more or explore our flaring and venting services for the oil and gas industry.