Flare Boom

Here you see the 'Hermod' removing NW Hutton's flareboom. Or Burner Boom. Older pictures of platforms always show a bright flame high above the installation at the end of a long tower. This tower is called the flare boom. Flare booms have only one important function: get rid of excessive pressure in your pipelines. The production and drilling pipes are protected by a high pressure relief valves. If the pressure from your wells is suddenly becoming too high, the valve opens and the gas is bypassed to the flare boom where it is ignited by a pilot light. Gas flaring is done because gas is a by-product of oil and oil companies neither utilize nor recycle it. You want to read some shocking facts and figures? It is estimated that over 100 billion cubic metres of natural gas are flared or vented annually, an amount worth approximately 30.6 billion dollars. The largest flaring operations occur in Nigeria. In spite of a ruling by the Federal High Court of Nigeria (that forbade flaring) in 2005, 43% of the of the gas retrieval was still being flared in 2006. It is prohibited by law as of January 2008. The World Bank estimates that Nigeria loses about 2.5 billion dollars annually to gas flare. Also flaring and venting of gas in oil wells is a significant source of greenhouse emissions. But the good news is that this is steadily declining by three-quarters in absolute terms since a peak in the 1970s of approximately 110 million metric tons/year.