Saudi Aramco’s Safaniyah Onshore Producing Department (SONPD) recently completed an ambitious, and successful, initiative to reduce gas flaring in its operations.
As a part of SONPD’s journey toward Operational Excellence, an in-house flare recovery system was designed and constructed at Tanajib Plants to eliminate daily gas flaring to protect the environment from harmful emissions such as sulfur oxide (SOx) and nitrogen oxide (NOx).
“This enhancement is another example of the cascading responsibility within the company to maximize environmental stewardship in every aspect of our operations and by every organization,” said SONPD manager Mansour F. Al Dossary.
“This further ensures Saudi Aramco’s position as a world leader in environmental protection. It is also a clear indication that by leveraging our internal capabilities, we can achieve a lot with relatively minimal investments in some cases.”
The project design stage required process and safety impact studies to ensure that the newly installed system would not compromise the plant’s operational safety.
After the completion of both studies, SONPD proceeded with implementation of the design with in-house material and workmanship ensuring minimum cost.
The system was commissioned in late 2015, and since then, it has been recovering 0.41mn standard cubic feet per day (scfd) without any impact on plant operations.
This amount adds up to an anticipated flare recovery of 150mn scfd every year and an overall decrease of harmful SOx emissions of 450 tonnes per year, in addition to a profit gain of $1.5mn.
The initiative was one of SONPD’s many environmental initiatives undertaken during the past year to help maintain a healthier environment while excelling at its core business of oil and gas production.
