Flaring planned at Fife chemical plant this weekend

Unplanned flaring at Mossmorran, April 2019 (Pic: FFP)

ExxonMobil, which runs Fife Ethylene Plant (FEP), will carry out a “key piece of work” on its flare stack on Sunday.

In a statement, Jacob McAlister, plant manager said the neighbouring Shell Fife NGL plant had agreed to use their elevated flare for a few hours to enable the work to be carried out safely.

He said: “It is expected that this will not be high volume flaring.

“This arrangement is required to divert the small amount of vapour that has been flared through the FEP stack since we temporarily shut down.

“We will move to complete this work as safely and as quickly as possible, following which FEP will then return to its current configuration.”

The ExxonMobil site has been shut down since August after two of its three boilers failed.

Last week it was revealed that the restart of the FEP had been delayed until January, meaning there will be no elevated flaring over Christmas and New Year.

The initial plan had been for the plant to be restarted in November.