Flare stack hydrocarbon vapors

The purpose of a blowdown drum is to disengage closed safety valve releases and various drainage, blowdown and diverted materials into liquid and vapor streams which can be safely disposed of to appropriate storage and flaring facilities, respectively. Entrainment of liquid hydrocarbons into a flare stack is not acceptable, since the potential exists for burning liquid falling onto the ground or adjacent facilities. For this reason, a blowdown drum is required. 

It is important to note that even if the blowdown is effective in disengaging liquid and vapor, further condensation could occur downstream especially if the vented vapor exits the drum at a temperature above ambient conditions. A proportion of such condensible materials in the blowdown drum vapor release may condense as a result of cooling in the flare header and contact with seal water, and then disengage in the flare seal drum while condensible vapors which are not condensed out at this stage may condense in the flare stack or its inlet line, thus creating the potential for hazardous fallout of burning liquid from the flare. Condensed hydrocarbon in the seal drum can be entrained out with the... 

W = required vapor capacity in pounds per hour, or any flow rate in pounds per hour, vapor relief rate to flare stack, Ibs/hr W(. = charge weight of explosive, lb Wj. = effective charge weight, pounds of TNT for estimating surface burst effects in free air W, = required steam capacity flow or rate in pounds per hour, or other flow rate, Ib/hr Whe = hydrocarbon to be flared, Ibs/hr Wtnt equivalent charge weight of TNT, lb Wl = liquid flow rate, gal per min (gpm)... 

This accident occurred on March 23, 2005 at the British Petroleum (BP) Texas City Refinery, the third largest oil refinery in fhe United States, when a hydrocarbon vapor cloud exploded at the isomerization process unit [8]. More specifically, on March 23, 2005 at the refinery, an isomerization unit s start-up whose raffinate tower was overfilled resulted in the raffinate overheating and pressure relief devices opening, and then consequently led to a flammable liquid geyser from a blow down stack unequipped with flare and then an explosion and fire [1,9]. The accident killed 15 workers and injured over 170 others [1,8,9]. 

A flare stack is to be designed for hydrocarbon vapors of the following conditions ... 

Sharing of past major incidents with other oil and gas industries provides useful input data for similar process industries in order to identify the most critical barriers and improve their safety processes. One poignant example highlights this matter. In 1998 there was an accident in the gas compression stage of a Middle East oil and gas plant which caused 7 dead as a result of fuel accumulation and vapor cloud explosion which was very similar to the Texas City Refinery disaster on March 23, 2005 in which a distillation tower was overfilled and an uncontrolled release of hydrocarbons led to a major explosion and fires. Fifteen people were killed and 180 were injured in the worst disaster in the United States in a decade. In both incidents, excess hydrocarbons were diverted into a pressure relief system that included a blowdown stack. In the Iranian case, it was equipped with a flare, but one which the operator didn t ignite in Texas City the blowdown stack was not equipped with a flare to burn off hydrocarbons as they were released. As a result, the flammable overflow from the tower entered the atmosphere. Ignition of the escaped hydrocarbons was enabled by startup of a nearby vehicle resulted in the explosion and subsequent fires (Hopkins, 2008). This example shows the repetitive patterns of accidents, and root causes of events all over the world in this sector. The lesson of this paper is that accidents in one country, where the scenarios are very similar, can and should serve as lessons to prevent the same scenario being actualized in other countries. 

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