Gas-to-oil technology promises flaring alternative

Hybrid Energy Holdings recently began development and property-integration plans for a technology that will convert flare gas into a synthetic, commercially viable form of crude oil. By commoditizing this natural byproduct of oilfield drilling operations, the technology promises productivity and environmental sustainability gains for the user, the company states.

The practice of combusting the associated gas from produced oil through flaring has become standard in oil fields that are too remote from potential markets or transport infrastructure. However, growing concerns of increasing greenhouse-gas emissions have prompted worldwide efforts to reduce gas flaring. Hybrid Energy Holdings quoted an estimate by the World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership that 1.5% of global carbon emissions came exclusively from gas flaring in 2009.

In addition, the company touts the oil produced from the surplus gas as being a good source of supplemental profits that could feed unconventional oil projects such as shale gas and oil shale, which will increase in the future.

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