What is Gas flaring?

About Gas flaring

• It is the burning of the natural gas associated with oil extraction. 
• Why is gas flared?
  • Flaring persists to this day because it is a relatively safe, though wasteful and polluting, method of disposing of the associated gas that comes from oil production.
  • Utilizing associated gas often requires economically viable markets for companies to make the investments necessary to capture, transport, process, and sell the gas.
  • Firms usually resort to flaring when they lack adequate infrastructure or financial incentives to bring the gas to market, or when it needs to be released for safety reasons to manage changes in pressure during crude oil extraction.
• Most flared gas, primarily associated gas, is very similar to the natural gas used worldwide for power generation, as feedstock for the manufacture of chemicals, distributed to homes, etc.
• However, it may require processing to remove contaminants before it can be used.
• Associated gas can also be used on-site for generating electricity, compressed or liquefied for transportation as compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquified natural gas (LNG) respectively, or converted into liquid form (e.g., synthetic oil, diesel, methanol, DME) by using gas-to-liquid (GTL) technologies.
• Impacts on environment
  • The flare's combustion converts hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide and water, which lessens the climate impact and reduces the safety concerns of the natural gas on site but also produces nitrogen oxides, or NOx.
  • NOx—which includes the highly reactive gases nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide—directly and indirectly impacts air quality.
• How to reduce gas flaring? Oil producers can either re-inject associated gas or use it for productive purposes.

What is associated gas?

• It is a by-product of oil extraction and often considered a waste product if there is not an easily accessible gas market. However, associated gas can be used in several productive ways, including to generate electricity.
• Its composition can vary widely at different locations, from almost pure methane with some ethane, to gas that also contains heavier hydrocarbons like propane and butane.

 Q1) What is Natural gas?

It is a fossil energy source that formed deep beneath the earth's surface. Natural gas contains many different compounds. The largest component of natural gas is methane, a compound with one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms (CH4).

Source: Natural gas flare samples collected by aircraft reveal high variation in nitrogen oxides emission estimates