vent stack fire

[john1964]

Has anyone experienced vent stack fires at offshore platforms during thunderstorms????
My case is with around 0.5 MMscfd discharge through the vent to atmosphere- the source being mostly purge gas & leak from compressor seals.
What is the solution to prevent such fires??

 

[Unotec]

A flame arrestor?

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>

 

[JLSeagull]

Perhaps one solution could be to vent to the flare.

 

[BigInch]

Wish I had that problem.

**********************
"Pumping systems account for nearly 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25% to 50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities." - DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99.99% for pipeline companies)

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[john1964]

Gents, Thanks for the replies.

The problems faced by me against the solutions-
Flame arrestor gets clogged over a period of time. Again how do we maitain the flame arrestor on a 200 feet vent stack of 8" diameter pipe??

The pressure from the compressor seals is too low & hence the same is vented to atmosphere, hence flaring is not an option.

Do we have anything else??

 

[Unotec]

A scrubber maybe?
If your problem is that the gases at the vent stack ignite during a storm, you need to prevent them from getting them.
Depending what they are, you can scrub them prior to venting or maybe enev consider recompressing the gases with a vapour recovery system

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>

 

[chief]

Use a water ejector at top of vent to induce the flow of gases and the resultant intermingling of gas and water mitigates against ignition.

Offshore Engineering&Design

 

[miked7]

you may want to consider CO2 flood. We put a stack of CO2 bottles linked to vent in case of thunderstorm igition. Vent snuffer package.