Chevron wraps flare system revamp at Cape Town refinery

April 29, 2015
Chevron South Africa (Pty.) Ltd. has completed the replacement of a flare stack at its 110,000-b/d refinery in Cape Town, South Africa.

Chevron South Africa (Pty.) Ltd. has completed the replacement of a flare stack at its 110,000-b/d refinery in Cape Town, South Africa.

The refinery’s old, 52-m flare stack has been dismantled and replaced with a newly constructed 103-m flare stack, according to Babcock International Group PLC, which completed dismantling and construction services on the project.

Babcock, which provided full turnkey services as part of separate contracts with Chevron, completed both projects on schedule, enabling Chevron to commission the new flare stack during the refinery’s scheduled maintenance shutdown that took place from Feb. 13 to Mar. 31, the service provider said.

In February, Chevron confirmed the planned maintenance shutdown at Cape Town would include work to complete the 450 million-rand ($38.9-million) revamp of the refinery’s flare system (OGJ Online, Feb. 9, 2015).

The flare modernization project, which Chevron launched in 2009, comes as part of the company’s efforts to minimize the refinery’s environmental footprint as well as improve its operational efficiencies, said Doug Pottenger, general manager of the Cape Town plant.

Already at an advanced stage of construction as of February, the new elevated flare, designed for emergency relief scenarios only, was scheduled to be operational by the March conclusion of maintenance and inspection activities, Pottenger said.