| 05/11/2023 |
Additional Details provided by the operator: Gas Flare Meter |
| 05/11/2023 |
Corrective actions provided by the operator: Oxy is unable to take any corrective actions to eliminate the cause and potential reoccurrence of a downstream third-party owned and operated sales gas pipeline’s sudden and unexpected high line pressure issues, as this is downstream of Oxy’s custody transfer point and out of Oxy’s control to foresee, avoid, prevent from happening or reoccur. Enterprise’s downstream facilities and associated facilities, may have compression equipment issues which will reoccur from time to time and may trigger a spike in their gas line pressure, which in turn, directly impacts Oxy’s ability to send gas to them. When Enterprise has downstream activity issues or greatly struggles to handle the volume of gas being sent to them by Oxy, Enterprise then restricts Oxy’s ability to send gas, which then prompts Oxy to route all of its stranded gas not pushed into the Enterprise gas pipeline, to flare. OXY makes every effort to control and minimize emissions as much as possible. The only actions that Oxy can take and handle that is within its control, is to continually communicate with Enterprise personnel, who own and operate the sales gas pipeline, when possible, during these types of circumstances. |
| 05/11/2023 |
Primary Equipment identified by the operator (Other (Specify), with additional details: Emergency Flare > Third Party Downstream Activity > Enterprise > Compression Equipment Issues) |
| 05/11/2023 |
Steps taken to prevent waste provided by the operator: It is OXY's policy to route its stranded gas to a flare during an unforeseen and unavoidable emergency or malfunction, that is beyond Oxy's control to avoid, prevent or foresee, to minimize emissions as much as possible as part of the overall steps taken to limit duration and magnitude of flaring. The flare at this facility has a 98% combustion efficiency to lessen emissions as much as possible. In this case, Enterprise, third party owned and operated downstream pipeline operator, had compression equipment issues, which in turn, affected and prompted Oxy’s upstream facility to pressure up automatically and trigger flaring to occur. As soon as flaring was triggered, the facility’s mitigation optimizer cut injection rates to wells in the field to reduce injection and sales gas. In addition, as soon as flaring alarms were received by field personnel, they began to shut-in several wells to assist with reducing field pressure so that it would stay below the flare trigger setpoints of the CTB to cease flaring, which took some time to do. This event is out of OXY's control, yet OXY made every effort to control and minimize emissions as much as possible. |
| 05/11/2023 |
Incident updated by the operator, upon the submission of a amendment for flaring of natural gas report. |
| 05/11/2023 |
The (05/11/2023, C-129A) application [216263] was assigned to this incident. |
| 04/27/2023 |
The (04/27/2023, NOMVF) application [211453] was assigned to this incident. |
| 04/27/2023 |
New incident created by the operator, upon the submission of a notification of venting or flaring. |
| 04/26/2023 |
The event discovered by the operator; will be tracked as a Flare till submission of the required subsequent C-129A. |