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Flaring at Offshore Oil Rigs and at Oil Refineries like Burning Money or Profit


The chemicals burned in flare stacks could instead be cooled, compressed, cracked by catalytic decomposition or isomerize into higher valued petrochemicals or fuels, like propane, butane, hydrogen, lubricants, wax, jet fuel, diesel, gasoline, solvents like hexane, heptane, octane, used in chemical laboratories and in manufacturing. 

These chemical recovery products that could be harvested from the flare feed stream by redirecting the chemicals to be flared off instead into holding tanks for petrochemical small scale onboard refining into higher value added products, downstream sold in markets where such are very valuable like Norway or Japan where people pay more for fuel or petrochemical feedstocks that could be easily made profitably from the flare stack feedstock. 

Even natural gas thats normally flared off could be cooled, compressed and liquified as CNG and loaded into CNG ships for use as fuel on the ship to move other goods or to move bulk amounts of CNG to markets abroad where they cost enough to make shipping them around the world profitable. In this way many oil refineries and oil rigs are burning money by burning chemicals in the flare gas stack, literally making air pollution instead of increasing profits. 

Air pollution near major oil refineries largely originates from flaring, or burning off chemicals in the flare gas stack or flaring stream output, when that is literally like burning money while producing toxic air pollution thats bad for public and environmental health or deleterious and harmful to people working and living near the operations, including the workers on the oil rigs and people who work at or live near oil refinery operations. 

This means the oil industry could improve profits while reducing pollution by upgrading oil rigs and oil refiners with flare column recovery units that redirect chemicals that would have been burned off senselessly making air pollution, redirecting those energy dense chemical substance to catalytic cracking or isomerization or further downstream processes to make higher value added petrochemical products to sell for increasing profits. 

1 comment:

  1. Flaring is a complex issue, balancing safety and environmental concerns with operational efficiency. Collaborative efforts toward innovative solutions can help minimize waste while addressing industry challenges.
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