A Technical, Economic and Environmental Analysis of the Flaring Mitigation Opportunity for Operator 2 at Site 7

Three flare gas measurement campaigns sponsored by Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) were conducted in Colombia during the periods of 10 to 14 July 2017, and 8 to 12 July and 15 to 19 July 2019, respectively. Eight flaring oil and gas production facilities (Sites 1 to 8) were surveyed during these campaigns. Each site was nominated by its operator for inclusion in the study based on an objective screening process. A site was selected either because it was known to have large flaring rates, or because it was deemed representative of highly replicable flaring reduction opportunities.

The results have been processed to evaluate potential high-impact opportunities to cost effectively reduce flaring and associated black carbon (BC) emissions. A prefeasibility assessment of the practical mitigation options applicable to each flaring reduction opportunity was performed to determine the optimum mitigation solution. At least two of these opportunities have been advanced to the to the refined business case level for consideration by the operator and potential financiers.

A separate report is provided for each site to provide a standalone assessment of its flaring reduction opportunity and to allow easy promotion of the opportunity. This report presents the results for Site 7 operated by Operator 2. Both a prefeasibility assessment and a refined business case for the preferred mitigation option are provided.

Site 7 features a central thermal heavy oil treating plant with an existing gas conservation and vapour recovery scheme. The plant receives heavy oil from a network of multiwall production pads. The plant and overall operation are a net purchaser of natural gas (i.e., primarily for consumption by once-through steam generators, but also to fuel the heater treaters), so the gas conservation helps to directly reduce operating costs through avoided natural gas purchases. The gas currently being flared at the treatment plant is attributed to operational challenges with the gas recovery unit installed to capture off-gas from the treaters. This gas is relatively lean in NGL content and the flow rates are variable (apparently due to on/off level on the inlet separator and on/off temperature control on the treaters).

Both an anonymized and unanonymized version of this report has been prepared in both English and Spanish. The anonymized version is for presentation to the CCAC and the unanonymized version is for presentation to the operator.