Planned Maintenance and Use of Flare at Shell Fife NGL Plant

Planned maintenance and use of flare at Shell Fife NGL plant

Dear Community members,

Next week we begin preparations for a planned ‘Turnaround’ at the Shell Fife NGL plant, which is when we purposefully reduce production operations over a few weeks to prioritise carrying out important, planned maintenance work.

This activity and investment takes place most years at this time of year and is part of running a well maintained site, as well as ensuring safe operations and the integrity and longevity of the plant as a vital piece of North Sea energy supply infrastructure.

As part of this activity, I would like to notify residents close to our operations in Fife of some planned use of the elevated flare intermittently for 48 hours from the morning of Tuesday 14th August, and then again when we re-start the module from Friday 14th September for 24 hours.

This planned use of our flares is to fully remove hydrocarbons from one of our three modules to enable us to do thorough inspections and refurbishment. During this Turnaround, we will empty the pipes and vessels of Module 3 in order to be able to work on them.  We push as much of the product out of the lines as possible via normal processing routes, and what remains is then sent to flare. 

Please be reassured that we will take measures to minimise the impact, and there is no risk to the local community. We aim to manage operations so as to use our less visible ground flares and limit use of the elevated flare stack.

We have informed the regulator SEPA and the neighbouring ExxonMobil Fife Ethylene Plant.

I trust you appreciate the need for us to carry out important maintenance work periodically, and find the advance notice of use of the flare helpful to minimise any inconvenience it may cause. Thank you for your understanding.

Please let us know if you have questions or comment. Our contact details are also on the plant website.

Kind Regards,

Plant Manager, Shell Fife NGL plant

Background – about the Shell-operated Fife NGL plant

·         The ‘Mossmorran complex’ includes two sites operated by two companies: the Shell-operated Fife NGL plant and the ExxonMobil-operated Fife Ethylene Plant.

·         The Shell Fife NGL plant is a critical piece of infrastructure in a system that transports, processes and distributes gas from the North Sea, helping meet industry and domestic power needs, and providing feedstock to manufacture a wide range of household products in Scotland and the UK. Total capacity at the plant is 12,500 tonnes per day.

·         The Shell Fife NGL plant employs more than 250 people, the majority of whom are local and help make us part of the community. We procure local goods and services, and support social investment programmes in nearby communities in Fife.

Background – about our flaring

·         Occasional elevated flaring is required to run the plant safely, acting like a safety valve when the plant cannot process properly. This is typically for hours rather than days, and we aim to notify the community in advance of any planned flaring, and as soon as we can for any unplanned events.

·         We aim to avoid and minimise flaring, which we recognise can be a significant inconvenience to neighbours in the local community. The Shell Fife NGL plant has had cause to notify the local community of four unplanned flaring events in the last three years. The average total amount flared at the plant is less than 0.1% of throughput.

·         We work hard to do the right thing, to avoid harm to people and to manage our impact on the environment. Although safety and the environment are more important, it is also not in the commercial interest of the plant to flare as the value of the products we process is lost when we flare.