It's definitely flaring. Just look at the other images. Due to the way the flare is placed it just looks like it's on fire. It's still an emergency flare and looks like a pretty bad situation. I've worked on similar drill rigs and i would not want to be on one that is flaring that much.

http://imgur.com/FTFgz5U

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:185...

No, it was definitely a fire: http://www.naroomanewsonline.com.au/story/1345250/ship-spott...

Definitely a fire, yes, but also definitely an intentional one. Look at the images others have posted in the thread: http://imgur.com/FTFgz5U. It has a flare at platform level sticking out one side.

My bad then. That caption on the article I linked is pretty misleading.

Offshore and relatively remote crude rigs commonly flare off natural gas because of the cost involved in attaching them to collection pipelines (and infeasibility of condensing it to LNG). That is why the Bakken fields can be seen from space at night: http://www.ceres.org/industry-initiatives/oil-and-gas/gas-fl...

What I always wonder: why flare it off instead of using the gas to provide for electricity and heat for local usage?

Excessive amounts past what is needed for local heat and electricity. North Dakota did recently pass legislation requiring more efficient/environmentally friendly storage/processing/usage of natural gas that would've previously been flared, regardless of how economically viable it is.

EDIT: I'm mistaken. North Dakota gave the industry an extra 10 months to meet these requirements.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/24/us-north-dakota-fl...

> Governor Jack Dalrymple and the two other members of the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC) voted unanimously to change the date when companies must capture 85 percent of natural gas produced from their wells to Nov. 1, 2016.

Classy North Dakota.

Because it's a massive safety risk, and believe it or not, the cost is not with doing that. There is a lot of the gas. You must control it.

Methane is heavier than air and it will pool down and make a potential FOOOOM!!! event. Unscheduled release of energy bad. Asphyxiation by methane bad. There's no odorant and you can't smell it.

It can be controlled though, you just need to be willing to pay for the infrastructure to do so.

Agreed. I'd love to see it myself.

Methane is lighter than air.

Nat. Gas may or may not be just methane. You are absolutely correct for what's called "dry gas".

This is a drill rig and does not have any oil/gas production facilities. The pressure in a well can be very unpredictable and is very dangerous to connect directly to generators/heaters. I's much safer to flare it off for the short period when plugging the well.

Oil rigs have specially designed flare stacks, so you won't really see flare fires right on the deck like that.

http://photorator.com/photos/images/north-sea-oil-rig-flarin...