Rental Flare

Rent a flare when the need is short-term, urgent, or non-recurring, typically when the duration is under 6 to 12 months, or when capital constraints make buying impractical. Renting avoids capex, depreciation, and storage between uses. Rent makes sense for a plant turnaround or commissioning that needs temporary gas disposal, an emergency response while a permanent flare is offline, a pilot project or trial, pipeline blowdown, hydro-testing or one-off gas displacement, or when capital approval is delayed but the need is immediate. Buying makes sense for permanent or recurring multi-year flaring at a fixed site, where rental costs across the full duration would exceed the purchase price.

Rental terms typically range from a few weeks to multiple years, with standard contracts at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months and longer-term agreements available with reduced monthly rates. Terms cover the unit, controls, ignition, optional operator support, and routine consumables such as pilot fuel. The typical commercial scope sets out mobilisation and demobilisation charges, the monthly or daily rental rate, which declines with longer commitment, operator or technician support if requested, maintenance and inspection responsibilities during the rental period, insurance and liability terms, and return condition and damage assessment terms. Project-specific scope such as sour service or an on-site engineer is added as required.

A standard rental flare package includes the complete flare system ready to operate: flare stack and tip, pilot burners, ignition system, control panel, gas inlet piping, and skid or trailer mounting. The stack height is set for radiation safety, the flare tip is sized for the design flow range, the pilot system is continuous with redundant ignition, the PLC control panel has an HMI and alarm logic, and the gas inlet has a flange and isolation valve, with pilot fuel from process gas or integrated propane. Optional add-ons cover an on-site operator, remote monitoring, additional fuel tanks, custom controls and sour-service material upgrades.

The time to get a rental flare on-site depends on the fleet location relative to the site, the transport mode by road, sea or air, site readiness in terms of pad, gas tie-in and electrical supply, which can be prepared in parallel, customs clearance for international shipments, and site access constraints such as crane availability for skid units. Pre-engineered units in the rental fleet are kept commissioned and ready to deploy, which avoids the design and fabrication lead time of a purchase. Air freight can be considered when the timeline is critical and the project economics support the cost.

Rental flares are designed to the same design standards as permanent units: API 537, API 521, EPA 40 CFR 60.18, EU IED as applicable, and project-specific local requirements. The flare stack height and the radiation exposure at grade are set in line with API 521 for personnel safety, and the pilot and ignition arrangements follow the same engineering practice as CRA’s permanent flares. The standards that apply to a particular deployment are confirmed with the client when the unit is selected.