I have received the following community notice from Shell Fife NGL Plant regarding a potential smoky flare on Wednesday the 19th of September. See the note below:
Shell Fife NGL Plant Community Notice: Flare tip replacement and potential smoky flare.
Dear community members,
I am following up on my community notice of Wednesday 27 June regarding work to replace a flare tip on site. The work is due to complete this week and the flare tip will be ready to bring back into service.
This is to notify you that we intend to refit the steam valve on Wednesday, 19 September and there will be a period of approximately 12 hours when we will not be able to inject steam into the flare tip. Steam is used to ensure the full combustion of the flare and minimise smoky flaring. We aim not to use the elevated flare during this operation but in the unlikely case that we do it is likely to be a smoky flare for a short period.
We have informed SEPA and the neighbouring Fife Ethylene Plant. As usual we aim to minimise any impact of the work on the community. As before, we will prioritise use of two ground flares over use of the elevated flare, and we have planned carefully for steady operations during the work. We did not need to use the elevated flare during the June operation to take the flare tip offline.
I hope you find this notice helpful. Please share it with others who may be interested and 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 Fife NGL plant 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.
