Flare Stack

A flare stack is an elevated pipe and burner used to combust natural gas that cannot be sent to a sales line. In oilfield use it is a piece of wellsite or tank-battery equipment, not a refinery-scale flare system. Portable units ride on trailers for flowback and well testing. Stationary units sit at facilities that still have continuous or intermittent waste-gas volumes.

In the Permian Basin, stacks are sized against gas rate, composition, and how often the job moves. A flowback stack that is too small smokes; one that is overbuilt is hard to move and still will not light reliably in a strong wind if ignition and pilots are wrong. Permit and operator rules on visible smoke and stack height matter as much as barrel diameter.

Redhead Services supplies portable and stationary flare stacks from Odessa and supports them across West Texas and southeast New Mexico. If the stream is tank vapor that should be recovered or enclosed rather than flared, see vapor recovery units and combustors.