FLARE GAS MEASUREMENT

BACKGROUND

The need to control and report atmospheric emissions is clearly

understood and accepted. However, in reality, the measurement of
atmospheric emissions and the technicalities involved are not so
straightforward, especially from flares. Unlike other internal
combustion plant, such as a gas turbines or diesel engines, a flare
has no duct or stack after combustion takes place to contain and
direct the exhausted emissions. In an open flare, the gases are
combusted at the top of the flare stack and the emissions are
thereafter dispersed freely into the atmosphere. This makes it
extremely difficult to directly measure the associated emissions
using traditional techniques, such as stack sampling.

HOW ARE EMISSIONS FROM FLARES MEASURED?

Emissions from flares are determined by measuring the quantity of

gas flared and the composition of the gas stream, in order to derive
the carbon content and an emission factor. For the purpose of EU
ETS reporting these factors have to be determined to within a high
degree of accuracy, where operators have to meet tight
measurement uncertainty targets for the reported data.
Unfortunately, measuring the quantity of gas flared is not as simple
as it sounds and differs significantly from measuring gas flow under
normal applications. Since the primary role of the flare is to act as a
pressure relief route to safely dispose of unwanted gases, it is
essential that any measurement device installed in the flare line
does not interfere with this function. Consequently this limits the
use of many traditional gas flow meters on the market, which are
intrusive by design and as such obstruct gas flow.

FLARE OPERATION

Flares also operate under hostile, unpredictable and extreme

conditions, and as such, many flow meters cannot cope with the
temperatures, flow rates and gas compositions involved, especially if
any water vapour, liquids and solids are present in the gas stream.
Furthermore, accessing the flare for the purpose of undertaking gas
sampling, maintenance or calibration is also a difficult undertaking
offshore due to the associated health and safety risks, including the
radiated heat and hazardous waste products leaving the flare. The
alternative of shutting down the flare especially to undertake these
activities could impact seriously on production and energy needs.

Due to the difficulties involved with the direct measurement of

flares to obtain gas flow and composition, the offshore industry often
rely on inferred methods, including software modeling and the use of
specialised techniques and tools. There are countless other issues
and challenges associated with the measuring emissions from flares.
These are reported in full in a TUV NEL report.
EU ETS

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is the key environmental

legislation applicable to offshore flaring. The associated EU ETS
monitoring and reporting guidelines (MRG2007) require oil and gas
operators to monitor and report their emissions to a high degree of
accuracy and to ensure that all equipment and tools used to derive
emissions data is appropriately applied, maintained, checked,
adjusted and calibrated at regular intervals. Measurement
uncertainty underpins the whole credibility of emissions reporting, as
reflected under the MRG2007 tier of approaches, which specify the
maximum permitted measurement uncertainty level for each
installation category.

MEASURING EMISSIONS FROM FLARES

The EU ETS allows operators the choice of measuring combustion

emissions using CEMS (Continuous Emissions Measurement systems) or
calculation methods. The use of CEMS is not suitable for flares as a
flare has no contained emissions after combustion takes place to
measure. Therefore, the calculation method is used to determine
CO2 emissions from flares.

The calculation method generally involves a combination of direct

and indirect (inferred) measurements to derive the total emissions
figure. For a flare, the total emissions is a measure of the amount of
gas flared, the emission factor (which is a measure of the gas carbon
content) and oxidation factor (which is the proportion of carbon not
oxidised or converted during the combustion process). Using these 3
factors, the total emissions from a flare is derived from:

CO2 Emissions = Activity Data x Emission Factor x Oxidation

METHODS FOR DETERMINING THE AMOUNT OF GAS FLARED

(INFERRED AND DIRECT METHODS)

The main two approaches used for determining the amount of gas
flared (activity data) can be grouped under 'inferred methods
(indirect)' or 'direct methods'. Both have advantages and
disadvantages, dependent on the application.

An inferred method is used when there is no flare gas meter installed

in the flare to measure directly the amount of gas flared, or if the
flare gas meter is unreliable under certain operating conditions.
Direct methods entail the use of dedicated flare gas meters installed
in the flare to allow a direct measurement of the gas flared at source
without relying on estimations from contributory sources.

Dedicated flare gas meters can be volumetric flow or mass flow

types. However, the regulator requires flare gas quantities to be
reported in mass units. Volumetric flare gas meters require
secondary instruments to measure pressure and temperature in order
to derive density for calculation of the gas composition. Pressure and
temperature are also necessary when using mass flow meters to
 allow conversion to normal conditions, which is a necessary
requirement under the EU ETS reporting guidelines.

The majority of flow meters struggle to measure accurately during

blow down events due to the excessive flow rates and changes in gas
mixture, particularly if liquids, solids and water vapour are present
in the gas stream. In contrast, some inferred methods, such as the
by-difference methods, as explained below, may be more accurate
during blow down. For this reason, a combination of both the by-
difference method (for blow down) and direct measurement using a
dedicated flare gas meter (for normal flow conditions) are often used
by operators to meet the measurement uncertainty targets of the EU
ETS.

CALIBRATION AND VERIFICATION OF FLARE GAS METERS (USING

TRACERS AND OTHER TECHNIQUES)

Although calibration and verification of measurement equipment is a

specific requirement under the EU ETS monitoring and reporting
guidelines (MRG2007), in reality this is a very difficult undertaking
for flaring. This, amongst other things, can be due to the difficulties
involved in accessing flare gas meters where health and safety and
production scheduling has to be considered.

The main two options available for calibrating flow meters are:

1. Laboratory calibration of flare gas meters

2. In-situ Calibration

LABORATORY CALIBRATION OF FLARE GAS METERS

Calibration laboratories normally perform calibrations under ideal
flow conditions (flow-profile, gas composition, flow rates) and are
unlikely to match installation conditions, such as bends, pipe layout
and pipe sizes. Calibration of the meter at a laboratory also depends
on there being a production downtime window.

Many offshore operators evaluate the various flare gas installations

effects incurred from pipe layout etc. using software such as CFD
(computational fluid dynamics). This can be extremely useful in
evaluating the impact on flow measurement.

IN-SITU CALIBRATION

The main advantages of in-situ calibrations are that the sensors are
calibrated in true field conditions and calibrations and checks can be
performed whilst the flare is operational. The main drawback
however is the difficulty in controlling input conditions on the
installation during calibration. This can have a major impact on the
repeatability and reproducibility of results. By careful planning this
may be improved upon by isolating and by-passing parts of the plant
in order to input known quantities and gas composition to the flare.
The problem is that this approach could involve taking the flare
offline, which could impact on production if not done during a
scheduled shut-down. It is also doubtful that high-end flow rates can
be checked during in-situ calibration as the deliberate routing of gas
to the flare could be extremely costly and deemed unacceptable
from an environmental and energy conservation standpoint.
IN-SITU CALIBRATION USING INSERTION PROBES

If conditions in the flare system are stable, in-situ calibration of flare

gas meters can be carried out using insertion probes which are
traceable to national standards. Various insertion probes are
available, including pitot tubes, thermal mass flow meters (TMFs),
and insertion turbine flow meters.

IN-SITU FLOW METER VERIFICATION

Most meters can be verified in-situ to some degree, from even the
most basic checks, such as zero-checking of electronics and cabling
to assess drift and other parameters. Self-checking functions may
also be available with some meter types to allow checking of
algorithms and electronics.

Some meters have built-in features that can facilitate more

comprehensive checking and verification. Where ultrasonic meters
feature retraction mechanisms, the sensors can be easily removed,
whilst the line is operational, and checked in a small calibration
chamber filled with a test gas at a known temperature and pressure.

Other types of meters, such as thermal mass meters, have the ability
to pass a test gas, such as nitrogen, by the sensors at varying flow
rates and temperatures to allow performance to be checked against
a baseline test performed during factory calibration.

POST INSTALLATION VERIFICATION

Regardless of what type of primary flow meter and secondary

instrumentation is used, post-installation verification should be
performed in all cases to check that the installation has been carried
out in accordance with the manufacturer’s specification and to
provide dimensional verification and necessary data for future checks
and calibrations.