Keeping a turnaround on the right side of regulations

During a shutdown for large-scale turnarounds, refineries burn off excess gas as a safety system - a process known as flaring. But as environmental regulations around flaring are ever-changing and become stricter, refineries need to find ways to complete turnarounds while significantly reducing flaring. A major US refinery, processing more than 250,000 barrels per day, was preparing for a turnaround, and faced with the potential of not meeting the environmental regulations and heavy penalties, they turned to us for help.

We knew this would be a big job, so we assembled a team of experts from our Aggreko Process Services (APS) team and lead engineers from the refinery. Together, they designed an installation that would work with the flare system that was already in place, ensuring it wouldn’t get overwhelmed, and would cool, condense and collect the gas, so that very little would need to be burned. The plan included heat exchangers, pumps, generators and electrical distribution. We also trained site staff to run the system, and made sure our advisers were always on hand for any vital questions during the turnaround.

The engineered solution cooled, condensed and collected the majority of the vapors in the relief system -minimizing the load. The system worked incredibly well, and hardly any flaring at all was needed to keep the gas vapors in check. It was so effective, in fact, that the customer was able to reduce emissions by 99% while significantly speeding up their turnaround time!