Recovery of associate and flare gas for fuel and energy production

Collection and burning of excess gas in flare are recognized as one of the tools for safety and pressure control in oil, gas and petrochemical processes. Nevertheless, these gases are usually of high thermal value and might be used as feed in other industrial plants to produce value-added products, while burning them causes greenhouse gas emissions, air and noise pollution and unpleasant odor and somehow wasting economic resources. Various methods have been proposed for the recovery and reuse of flare or associate gases: pressure increasing and well injection, LNG or CNG production, chemical products or liquid fuel production and power generation. For choosing, the right process is required to examine various parameters that in most studies only the two main factors of gas volume and distance to the market have been addressed. However, there are other important factors in the process of recovery and utilization of associated and flare gas that must be considered. In this study, hierarchical analysis of different methods of recovery and application of flare gas is classified and investigated. The results show that among these methods the process of generating power or electrical energy is more important.