by John Vibes, The Waking Times:

The Shell oil corporation is burning off large volumes of ethane because they can’t sell it to their regular customer, which is a plant on the same property owned by ExxonMobil. The location is officially known as “Mossmorran,” and is used by numerous oil and gas companies. Residents near the property where the ethane is burning are complaining of pollution, light, and noise coming from the site.

Residents were hoping that the burning would only be happening for a short amount of time, but the ExxonMobil plant won’t be operational again until at least November. The plant is currently under a construction process that will cost at least £140m and is expected to last through November. Until then, Shell intends to continue the fuel burnings, insisting that they have nowhere to store it and no choice but to burn it.

According to BBC, a Shell Fife Natural Gas Liquids spokesman said, “The (ExxonMobil) Fife Ethylene Plant is currently the primary customer for ethane supplied by the Shell Fife Natural Gas Liquids plant, and processes ethane into ethylene. Our ground flares are burning excess ethane as the Fife Ethylene plant is currently not available for receiving the ethane to process it into ethylene.

“We have taken measures within the North Sea (SEGAL) supply system to help to manage the situation and are actively exploring alternative ethane outlets during the temporary shutdown. However, the volume taken by the Fife Ethylene plant is significant and any solution is likely to be for some volume rather than the full volume of ethane the Fife Natural Gas Liquids plant produces,” the statement added.

The burns have been going on for months and making life horrible for the surrounding community. However, the site has been a point of frustration for locals and environmental activists for many years, because this sort of activity is unfortunately extremely common.

Residents have posted videos to social media, showing how the fires from the plant light up the sky at night.

Very loud and unsettling noise from mossmorran tonight