Flare Gas Recovery from an Existing Oil Plant using Gas Compressors

Global warming is nowadays one of the main and important issues. As the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as a result of the combustion of these gases causes such phenomena. Therefore, oil and gas plants need to be constantly reviewed over time to maintain high performance and operability, especially while changing feed composition and rate to meet standard product specifications. The aim of this study is to study the effect of flare gases recovery using gas compressors on the economic and environmental performance of an existing oilfield plant. A commercial simulation program aspen HYSYS Version 11 was used. The Kalabsha Central Processing Facility (KCPF) in the Western Desert of Egypt is the studied plant. This plant handles 30 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) from free water knock out drum and 1.6 MMSCFD of gases from heaters. 20 MMSCFD from gas is charged to the gas pipeline and 10 MMSCFD is sent to the flare with the 1.6 MMSCFD. It is proposed to install gas compressors to capture the gases from the free water knock out drum and heaters before sending them to the flare. Such technology can be used as a guide in upgrading existing and new oil and gas plants to reduce gas flaring. In addition, environmental protection also adds more economic profits from burning the recovered gas besides increasing the life of the flare equipment.