Do stripper wells require burner management systems? - Chris
Not typically…and you already guessed the answer why: stripper wells are used to pump out the remnants of a once-productive oil or gas field. In a new field, the oil and gas are typically found under pressure and far larger quantities of methane are released early on. The gas emissions must be controlled during drilling and until such time that permanent facilities are established. Once a field has been developed, all manner of controls/equipment are in place. High production oil fields typically collect the gas for its economic value. As mentioned in previous threads, one may find heater-treaters or glycol dehydrators at established fields. These installations almost always have some sort of burner management system (usually installed by the manufacturer as part of a complete package).
Stripper wells for depleted oil fields suffer few gas emission problems. Here’s a photo of a typical stripper well:
http://www.delsjourney.com/images/news/news_01-06-24/1-2134-…
There are also stripper wells for gas fields. For this application to make any economic sense at all, the gas is collected rather than burned. It makes no sense to spend money to pump low volumes of gas only to burn that gas on-site.