A Technical, Economic and Environmental Analysis of the Flaring Mitigation Opportunity for Operator 2 at Site 8

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 8 operated by Operator 2. Both a prefeasibility assessment and a refined business case for the preferred mitigation option are provided.

Site 8 features a mature heavy oil battery with an existing gas conservation and vapour recovery scheme. Unfortunately, the existing vapour recovery scheme does not recover vapours from the entire tank farm. Those vapours not currently recovered are sent to a low pressure elevated flare for disposal. The gas is high in methane and has a very low NGL fraction.

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.