Igniting a 40' Flare Stack with a Flare Pen

In this rare opportunity I was able to record my cross-shift lighting our flare stack with a flare pen. It's a two man job, so filming it, is usually not an option. It was also nice to get this shot at night, as it wouldn't of shown up well, against the sky, during the day.
In this video, basically what is happening is we are doing an inline high-pressure gas test on a gas well. We are flowing the gas through our equipment (Seperator) and monitoring it before it goes down the pipeline, to the gas plant. Sometimes if the plant can't take anymore gas or we need to kick the flowrate up a bunch, we'll shut-in the valve to the pipeline, and divert the gas to the flare stack. The new flare stacks have electronic ignition...but in this video you'll see it done the old way, with a pen-style flare gun. You'll hear them kick the gas open a bit, before lighting it. Then he basically takes his best shot, at the top of the stack. After you'll hear the stack scream as the supervisor cranks the valve open wide at the tank.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• flame
• oil
• patch
• oilfield
• field
• burn
• ignition
• stack
• flare
• pen
• fire
• trailer
• gas
• high
• pressure

[dakka420]

we dont flare off to release excess pressure :S most companies would rather run the gas inline to a plant but some locations dont have a pipe line most of the time if i show up for a job its a flow test to see what the well an pipeline will do against line pack or its a work over like a re frac or pulling a tubing string . and buddy a 720 tank would almost never over pressure unless your on a huge horizontal with 900 decs of gas hittin you .

[Cenobite250]

@dakka420...not sure where you guys were sending your excess pressure then, when the pipeline/plant couldn't temporarily handle the gas? Most of the high pressure wells we worked in northern alberta would pressure-up 720psi tank pretty quick, after opening up, and many times we flared them for days. Most companies I worked for wanted a straight week test...pipeline or no pipeline...we kept flowing...and if it wasn't going in it, it was going up!

[PaddiColley]

yeah Ever had one of thos stupid plastic flares blow up????? There is a reason why you DO NOT use those style. Flare pistol is the only way to keep all your fingers and your face together

[Cenobite250]

@PaddiColley...ya i've had a couple of those stupid things missfire in my hands. Not saying they were the best, but they were what alot of us were supplied with.

[coenpat]

If you were in the forest you'd think there was dragon chasing you

[kcondos26]

My favorite part of the job is lighting the flare and blowing out hydrates Well Testers know how to get the jucies flowing hell ya

[philip21786]

@jelliot83 When you have more than needed, why not just flare it off, and DRILL BABY DRILL!!!!

[LONECOW117]

Smores anyone?

[jelliot83]

@Cenobite250 ahhhhhh i see, figures as much as the company invests in thoes wells if they could use it they would. thankx...

[Cenobite250]

Alot of these wells are in very remote locations...so I think the way the oil/gas companies look at it, that it wouldn't be cost effective to truck in tanks to capture that excess gas. We probably only tested that well for about a week or so, and only had to flare for a portion of that. If you consider most of these wells produce huge quantities of oil & gas over many many years (some over 20-30 years) the ratio of gas flared-off in the testing stage is pretty minuscule.