Qatargas reduces flaring by more than 50%, says Sheikh Khalid

Qatargas has reduced flaring by more than 50% and is currently undertaking several other initiatives to realise the target reduction to below 6,000mmscf (million standard cubic feet) per year by 2017.Moreover, the company is aiming to achieve zero liquid discharge into the sea and improve energy efficiency.These were disclosed by Qatargas chief operating officer (Engineering and Ventures) Sheikh Khalid bin Abdulla al-Thani at the 9th International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC), which concluded yesterday.Highlighting the various flare reduction projects, he said the company has been investing heavily in the areas with the objective of achieving a flaring target of less than 0.3% of the sweet gas produced.In his presentation, he shared insights into some of the major projects Qatargas has recently completed or are currently under development, with the objective of improving energy efficiency and minimising environmental impact in alignment with the goals set by the Qatar National Vision 2030.These projects included Jetty Boil-off Gas recovery facility, which was completed in October 2014 and is now fully operational. The project has resulted in a 90% reduction in flaring at the six LNG (liquefied natural gas) loading berths at Ras Laffan Port, saving 0.63mn tonnes per year of LNG. “This amount of gas is capable of powering over 300,000 homes per year and represents a saving of almost 1tn cubic feet of gas for Qatar over a period of 30 years — a significant reduction in the country’s carbon footprint,” Sheikh Khalid said.On the steps taken to improve energy efficiency, he said one of the key ongoing projects is the ‘QG1 Waste Heat Recovery’ project, which envisages conversion of the existing gas turbine generators into a cogeneration plant thereby having a positive impact on the carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions by improving the overall fuel utilisation efficiency.At the conference, Qatargas presented 15 research papers, which dealt with the need for a structured approach to create optimised planning and refining the processes and tools with expert stakeholder inputs to optimise and integrate gas production, eliminating the discharge of clean wastewater to the Arabian Gulf, reducing the amount of wastewater sent to injection wells, producing water for reuse as boiler feed water and measures taken by it to minimise unintentional environmental leakage risk of wellbore fluid by effective control of well barrier elements and implementing risk assessment recommendations to avoid unacceptable risk.