The impact of a zero-flaring system on gas plants, environment, and health

Abstract

Abstract Continuous natural gas flaring wastes significant energy resources and increases greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to global warming. Our work provides an overview of a technique to recover flare gas and reduce CO2 emissions to a minimum level. There are two methods to recover flare gas: the recovery of natural gas liquids and sales gas production by existing LPG unit and the production of liquid fuels by mini-GTL unit (gas to liquid). This study was conducted using real data from the field. All cases were simulated using Aspen HYSYS software. The mini-GTL unit is modeled using an autothermal reforming method. CO2 emissions will be reduced by 107.68 tonne/day in both methods. Economic analyses revealed that the NGL and sales gas product has a net present value (NPV) of 77.03 MMUSD, while the mini-GTL product has an NPV of 73.7 MMUSD. The study showed that we could extract natural gas liquids (NGLs), including propane, LPG, and sales gas, from the flare gas or convert it to liquid products, including gasoline and diesel. The expected internal rate of return (IRR) and payout time (POT) for NGL and sales gas method are 150.73% and 0.27 years, respectively. The mini-GTL method is recommended due to Egypt’s petroleum fuel shortage and the best solution without an entry point to the Egyptian national gas grid in the plant. However, the IRR and POT for the mini-GTL method are 30.09% and 1.19 years, respectively, and it needs more CAPEX than the NGL and sales gas method. Graphical Abstract

Keywords

• Flare gas utilization
• GTL simulation
• Liquified petroleum gas recovery
• Economic indicators