Ground flare, a new system of gas flaring used in a wide range of applications, is due to be employed in Iran’s petrochemical industry and refineries. It is aimed at reducing the emission of toxic gases into the environment.
Following Iran’s First International Flaring Conference held in Tehran last month, a Belgian processing energy company Europem, which was one of the organizers, has embarked on holding seminars for domestic oil companies to introduce state-of-the-art technologies in the flare industry, Shana reported.
During the seminars, Europem’s Managing Director Marcel Goemans and experts from both Iranian companies and the Belgian firm have elaborated on the issue, finally requiring Europem to provide the best proposal with the least time and costs to the Iranian energy enterprises for employing modern flaring systems in the Persian Gulf country’s petrochemical and refinery industries.
Speaking at the international summit, Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr, a senior official at the Oil Ministry, had called for the private sector to step in and help recover $3.5 billion from going to waste in Iran’s natural gas flares. He added that the country loses at least 28 million cubic meters of natural gas per day alongside crude extracted from oilfields, IRNA reported.
A study in 2012 showed Iran ranked third, after Russia and Iraq, in the global flaring of natural gas, according to Nature.com.
Types of Flare Systems
The three general types of flare systems are elevated flare system, a fairly less modern but widely used one, ground flare system and thermal oxidizer, which is used for complete combustion of toxic or hazardous hydrocarbon vapors. The latter, however, is yet to enter Iran’s processing industry.
In the elevated flare system, adequate and safe dispersion of toxic or smelly gases resulting from combustion can be ensured. But due to the open flame, this type of flare system can be a source of noise pollution.
In typical ground flare systems, the combustion of waste gases takes place close to the ground level. Thanks to the enclosure around the flame, ground flare has lower or no problems related to noise pollution and heat radiation. But the dispersion of gases is not as effective as with the elevated flare method.
