How can you achieve zero routine flaring? Predictive asset optimization

Posted: June 13, 2024

Zero routine flaring: tomorrow’s standard policy

For over one hundred years, oil refineries have commonly used gas flaring to dispose of the gas produced alongside oil. Though people generally know that flaring is a wasteful and environmentally harmful practice, it continues to be standard procedure. 

But times are changing. Now many global policymakers are calling for an end to routine gas flaring. The World Bank's Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR), for example, has set a target of "zero routine flaring" by 2030.

The initiative aims to end the practice at production sites for any reason other than safety and to ensure that new oil fields are developed without routine flaring. If successful, an estimated 140 billion cubic meters of flared natural gas annually will be saved—roughly enough to power all of sub-Saharan Africa. This equates to 300 million tons of CO₂ emissions.

How can you eliminate routine flaring?

While the path to eliminating routine flaring isn’t without hurdles, refiners can embrace several pragmatic strategies:

• Adopt predictive asset optimization tools, which can continuously forecast your emissions and flaring (see figures 1 and 2), continuously forecast performance changes, and predict failures to prevent unplanned shutdowns and unplanned maintenance.
• Undertake process modifications, such as flare recovery
• Use process unit pacing, which automatically slows and resumes overall operations whenever any part of the process slows down.

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