From Flames To Fuel

As the only refining facility in the Philippines, the Petron Bataan Refinery (PBR) is critical to ensuring fuel supply security for the country. Today, it is one of the most advanced facilities in Asia-Pacific, having benefited from a major upgrade completed in 2014.

As part of the Refinery’s operation, the plant may produce flare gas (waste gas) particularly during plant shutdown and startup activities and day-to-day operations. These waste gases are sent to the flare facility to ensure safe release to the environment, following strict environmental standards stipulated in RA 8749 or the Philippine Clean Air Act of 1999 and its Implementing Rules and Regulations.

In 2014, the refinery installed a Flare Gas Recovery Facility to recover the flare gas composed mainly of hydrogen, methane, ethane, butane, propane, and other derivatives, and to upgrade these to fuel that is used for the Refinery’s operation. Consequently, this reduced the requirement for supplemental fuel from other sources and avoided the carbon emissions from the supplemental fuel. The facility significantly reduced the plant’s flaring rate from 4.1% (as % of total GHG contributed by flaring) in 2012 to less than 0.7% since the completion of the project up to present. In 2022, actual waste gases recovered amounted to 32,330 barrels , which is equivalent to a reduction in the refinery’s energy consumption of around 206,597 GJ in the same year. The waste gas recovered in 2022 alone avoided 10,123 MT of GHG emissions from flaring.

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