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Article from the Ukrainian newspaper Volyn (January 2003)

THE MONEY WON'T GO UP IN SMOKE
by Katerina Zubchuk

Presently the flare is burning at the Lokachi Gas Field, and, so to speak, money is going up in smoke. Never the less, every day about 72 thousand cubic meters of gas is ignited on the flare. At the end of last year a correspondent of our newspaper discussed this flare, which had attracted attention because it is visible from far away (especially at night the glow can be seen as far away as the Lutsk - Volodymyr Volynskii Highway). As it turns out, this is a technological necessity. Since the Lokachi gas contains sulfur, here, as was planned, a gas-cleaning unit has finally been installed and put into operation. After cleaning, the gas goes on to the pipeline. Gas containing sulfur is diverted to the flare. This is a temporary situation because the gas presently being sent to the flare will later be used as fuel for a gas turbine electric power station.

"It's quite possible that the completion of start-up work will be delayed, and, as a result the, flare will continue to burn", remarked the author of this information, before the fact, one and a half months ago, bearing in mind that the start-up date of the electric power station was not yet determined. Today, it seems, there is a reason to hope that soon the Lokachi Gas Field will also generate electric power. At the end of January representatives from the American company Solar Turbines arrived in Lokachi, Christopher Vervecken and Danny Keane from Holland. The start-up and commissioning work on the electric power station is being done under their supervision.

"The flare, of course, will burn even after the electric power station goes on line", said the facility manager Ivan Yakoviv. A pilot light will ignite excess gas not used by the electric power station. It is also designated for use during emergency situations at the facility and gas field. If one notices that the two turbines from the American company Solar Turbines cost 7 million dollars, then it stands to reason that the planned construction of the electric power station has potential for expansion. According to the preliminary estimates of specialists, the reserves of the 20 wells on the Lokachi Gas Field are sufficient for 20 years of operation. The benefit will be double - gas and electric power production. Part of the electric power will meet the needs of the facility itself (3,000 kW a day); the rest will go to the unified power network.

Two of the transformers of the local substation are working presently in a consumption mode. In the near future they will switch over to generation mode. For this everything is prepared: 10 kilometers of 110 thousand volt power lines have been strung to the Zaturtsi and Mikulychi substations.

We had the opportunity to meet with the Solar representatives Christopher Verveken and Daniel Kin. In this meeting Alexander Mateshko helped out, a representative of the American company BSI Industries, Inc. that is directly involved with the construction of the electric power station. The Dutch nationals have had experience with similar facilities in the CIS - Azerbaijan, Russia. They are in Ukraine for the first time. They spoke highly about how the work was organized on the Lokachi site for the start-up and commissioning work ("A good crew is at work"). From Volyn they will go to Poltava. The foreign specialists said that this will be in the middle of February, after the Lokachi power station will be put into operation. That the flare is burning (flare height is, they say, 8 meters) evokes not only surprise in people - why waste money? Also, there is fear about releasing dangerous products into the atmosphere. All the same, gas with a high-sulfur content is diverted to the flare. So it remains to calm the fears of our readers with what we heard from the gas industry experts: there are regulations for the release of combustion products and there is a specialist at the gas field who will monitor the observation of those regulations and the actual releases. Besides this, the ecological situation is under the control the Natural Resources Department of the Volyn Region.