
[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 47 (Monday, March 11, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 8715-8718]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-04349]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0738 and EPA-HQ-OAR-2010-0682; FRL-9990-25-OAR]


Notice of Request for Approval of Alternative Means of Emission 
Limitation

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: This action provides public notice and solicits comment on the 
alternative means of emission limitation (AMEL) request from Shell Oil 
Products U.S. Martinez Refinery (Shell Martinez) under the Clean Air 
Act, to operate a multi-point ground flare (MPGF) at a refinery in 
Martinez, California. In this action, the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency (EPA) is soliciting comment on all aspects of this AMEL request 
and the corresponding operating conditions that would demonstrate that 
the requested AMEL will achieve a reduction in emissions of hazardous 
air pollutants (HAP) at least equivalent to the reduction in emissions 
required by the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air 
Pollutants from Petroleum Refineries (``Petroleum Refinery Maximum 
Achievable Control Technology (MACT)''). The Shell Martinez delayed 
coking unit (DCU) MPGF cannot meet the flare tip velocity limits in the 
Petroleum Refinery MACT. Based on our review of this request and 
supporting information, we conclude that, by following the conditions 
specified in this notice, the Shell Martinez DCU MPGF will achieve at 
least equivalent emissions reductions as flares complying with the 
Petroleum Refinery MACT requirements.

DATES: Comments. Comments must be received on or before April 10, 2019.

ADDRESSES: Comments. Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. 
EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0738, at https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online 
instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot 
be edited or removed from Regulations.gov. See SUPPLEMENTARY 
INFORMATION for detail about how the EPA treats submitted comments. 
Regulations.gov is our preferred method of receiving comments. However, 
the following other submission methods are also accepted:
     Email: a-and-r-docket@epa.gov. Include Docket ID No. EPA-
HQ-OAR-2014-0738 in the subject line of the message.
     Fax: (202) 566-9744. Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-
2014-0738.
     Mail: To ship or send mail via the United States Postal 
Service, use the following address: U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency, EPA Docket Center, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0738, Mail 
Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460.
     Hand/Courier Delivery: Use the following Docket Center 
address if you are using express mail, commercial delivery, hand 
delivery, or courier: EPA Docket Center, EPA WJC West Building, Room 
3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue

[[Page 8716]]

NW, Washington, DC 20004. Delivery verification signatures will be 
available only during regular business hours.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For questions about this action, 
contact Ms. Angie Carey, Sector Policies and Programs Division (E143-
01), Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS), U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 
27711; telephone number: (919) 541-2187; fax number: (919) 541-0516; 
and email address: carey.angela@epa.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Docket. The EPA has established a docket for this rulemaking under 
Docket ID No. EPA-EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0738. All documents in the docket are 
listed in Regulations.gov. Although listed, some information is not 
publicly available, e.g., Confidential Business Information (CBI) or 
other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain 
other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the 
internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy. Publicly 
available docket materials are available either electronically in 
Regulations.gov or in hard copy at the EPA Docket Center, Room 3334, 
EPA WJC West Building, 1301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC. The 
Public Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through 
Friday, excluding legal holidays. The telephone number for the Public 
Reading Room is (202) 566-1744, and the telephone number for the EPA 
Docket Center is (202) 566-1742.
    Instructions. Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-
2014-0738. The EPA's policy is that all comments received will be 
included in the public docket without change and may be made available 
online at https://www.regulations.gov, including any personal 
information provided, unless the comment includes information claimed 
to be CBI or other information whose disclosure is restricted by 
statute. Do not submit information that you consider to be CBI or 
otherwise protected through https://www.regulations.gov or email. This 
type of information should be submitted by mail as discussed below.
    The EPA may publish any comment received to its public docket. 
Multimedia submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a 
written comment. The written comment is considered the official comment 
and should include discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA 
will generally not consider comments or comment contents located 
outside of the primary submission (i.e., on the Web, cloud, or other 
file sharing system). For additional submission methods, the full EPA 
public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, 
and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.
    The https://www.regulations.gov website allows you to submit your 
comment anonymously, which means the EPA will not know your identity or 
contact information unless you provide it in the body of your comment. 
If you send an email comment directly to the EPA without going through 
https://www.regulations.gov, your email address will be automatically 
captured and included as part of the comment that is placed in the 
public docket and made available on the internet. If you submit an 
electronic comment, the EPA recommends that you include your name and 
other contact information in the body of your comment and with any 
digital storage media you submit. If the EPA cannot read your comment 
due to technical difficulties and cannot contact you for clarification, 
the EPA may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic files 
should not include special characters or any form of encryption and be 
free of any defects or viruses. For additional information about the 
EPA's public docket, visit the EPA Docket Center homepage at https://www.epa.gov/dockets.
    Submitting CBI. Do not submit information containing CBI to the EPA 
through https://www.regulations.gov or email. Clearly mark the part or 
all of the information that you claim to be CBI. For CBI information on 
any digital storage media that you mail to the EPA, mark the outside of 
the digital storage media as CBI and then identify electronically 
within the digital storage media the specific information that is 
claimed as CBI. In addition to one complete version of the comments 
that includes information claimed as CBI, you must submit a copy of the 
comments that does not contain the information claimed as CBI directly 
to the public docket through the procedures outlined in Instructions 
above. If you submit any digital storage media that does not contain 
CBI, mark the outside of the digital storage media clearly that it does 
not contain CBI. Information not marked as CBI will be included in the 
public docket and the EPA's electronic public docket without prior 
notice. Information marked as CBI will not be disclosed except in 
accordance with procedures set forth in 40 CFR part 2. Send or deliver 
information identified as CBI only to the following address: OAQPS 
Document Control Officer (C404-02), OAQPS, U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27711, 
Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0738.
    Acronyms and Abbreviations. We use multiple acronyms and terms in 
this notice. While this list may not be exhaustive, to ease the reading 
of this notice and for reference purposes, the EPA defines the 
following terms and acronyms here:

AMEL alternative means of emission limitation
BTU/scf British thermal units per standard cubic foot
CBI Confidential Business Information
CFR Code of Federal Regulations
DCU delayed coking unit
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
Eqn equation
FGR flare gas recovery
HAP hazardous air pollutants
MACT maximum achievable control technology
MPGF multi-point ground flare
NESHAP national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants
NHVcz net heating value of combustion zone gas
OAQPS Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards

    Organization of This Document. The information in this notice is 
organized as follows:

I. Background
II. Requests for AMEL Shell Martinez DCU MPGF
III. AMEL for the DCU MPGF
IV. Request for Comments

I. Background

Regulatory Flare Requirements and AMEL Requests

    The provisions in the Petroleum Refinery MACT, at 40 Code of 
Federal Regulations (CFR) 63.670 (d) specify operating requirements for 
flares used for emission points subject to the Petroleum Refinery MACT 
to ensure that the applicable standards for those emission points are 
met. The MACT, at 40 CFR 63.670 (r) allows the EPA to approve a site-
specific AMEL for a given flare if, after notice and opportunity for 
comment, it is established to the Administrator's satisfaction that the 
flare achieves 96.5-percent combustion efficiency (and 98-percent 
destruction efficiency) using the requested AMEL.
    AMEL requests have been submitted to the EPA for an MPGF that 
cannot comply with the applicable flare tip velocity requirements in 
the Petroleum Refinery MACT, 40 CFR 63.670(d). These maximum flare tip 
velocity requirements ensure that the flame does not ``lift off'' or 
separate from the flare tip, which could cause flame instability

[[Page 8717]]

and/or potentially result in a portion of the flare gas being released 
without proper combustion. Proper combustion for flares is considered 
to be 98-percent destruction efficiency or greater for organic HAP and 
volatile organic compounds. Shell Martinez submitted an AMEL request to 
operate a flare with tip exit velocities greater than those allowed in 
40 CFR 63.670 (d) while achieving >= 96.5-percent combustion efficiency 
and 98-percent destruction efficiency.
    Specifically, this request from Shell Martinez, which was submitted 
to the EPA on June 1, 2018, seeks an AMEL to operate an MPGF for its 
DCU at its Martinez Refinery during upset emergency conditions. This 
DCU is subject to the Petroleum Refinery MACT, 40 CFR part 63, subpart 
CC; accordingly, the request followed the AMEL framework specified in 
40 CFR part 63, subpart CC at 40 CFR 63.670(r). The DCU MPGF design in 
this request is a multi-point tip design which employs large numbers of 
tips close to ground level (these are termed multi-point ground flares 
[MPGF]). The EPA has reviewed this request and has deemed it to be 
complete.
    As mentioned above, Shell Martinez submitted this AMEL request to 
operate its DCU MPGF above the applicable maximum permitted velocity 
requirements at 40 CFR 63.670(d). Shell Martinez provided information 
to demonstrate that the DCU MPGF design achieves 96.5-percent 
combustion efficiency and 98-percent destruction efficiency using the 
requested AMEL, as required at 40 CFR 63.670(r). For further 
information on Shell Martinez's AMEL request, see supporting materials 
from Shell Martinez at Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2010-0682 and EPA-HQ-
OAR-2014-0738.

II. Requests for AMEL Shell Martinez DCU MPGF

    The Shell Martinez DCU includes an MPGF used to safely combust 
large volumes of high pressure, non-condensable, flammable vapor 
streams during upset or emergency conditions. The Martinez Refinery 
requested a minimum net heating value of the combustion zone (NHVcz) 
limit of 800 British thermal units per standard cubic feet (BTU/scf) 
that has been granted to other similarly designed MPGFs in the past. 
Specifically, the MPFG for which an AMEL was granted to Occidental 
Chemical Corporation, ``Occidental'' (81 FR 23480), utilizes the same 
Callidus MP-4 burner design that is employed at the Shell Martinez 
MPGF. The Callidus MPGF design uses cycling high pressure burners to 
maintain the required kinetic energy to ensure smokeless combustion. 
The Shell DCU MPGF contains 30 pilots, supplied with natural gas, that 
are installed to provide the source of ignition to ensure that 
emergency relief of process streams will be combusted. Shell Martinez 
uses flare gas recovery (FGR) compressors and manages the rate of gases 
vented to the flare system during startup, shutdown, and maintenance 
activities to limit flaring events only during emergencies. The three 
major causes of flaring at the DCU MPGF historically have been loss of 
FGR compressors, loss of DCU wet gas compressor, and distillate 
hydrotreater depressuring.

Information Supporting Shell's AMEL Requests

    As mentioned above, Shell Martinez provided the information 
specified in the flare AMEL framework at 40 CFR 63.670(r) to support 
their AMEL request. The information specified in the framework 
includes, but is not limited to: (1) Details on the project scope and 
background; (2) information on regulatory applicability; (3) flare test 
data on destruction efficiency/combustion efficiency; (4) flare 
stability testing data; (5) flare cross-light testing data; (6) 
information on flare reduction considerations; and (7) information on 
appropriate flare monitoring and operating conditions. For further 
information on the supporting materials provided, see Docket ID No. 
EPA-HQ-OAR-2010-0682 and EPA-HQ-OAR-2014-0738.
    Information supplied indicates that the DCU MPGF can achieve 96.5-
percent combustion efficiency and 98-percent destruction efficiency if 
operated under certain conditions, as specified in section III below. 
Generally, testing of burners for the vent gas mixture determined to be 
representative of the flare operation was used to set the appropriate 
NHVcz minimum limit. In this case, Shell Martinez's burner design 
(i.e., Callidus MP-4) is the same design as that in the AMEL EPA 
approved for Occidental (81 FR 23480). Shell Martinez submitted the 
Callidus MP-4 burner testing information that Occidental previously 
submitted to the EPA for its AMEL request. Shell Martinez is requesting 
an NHVcz limit of 800 BTU/scf, the same limit that was requested and 
approved in that prior Occidental AMEL request. This MP-4 burner model 
was shown to achieve the required combustion and destruction efficiency 
at a minimum NHVcz of 800 BTU/scf for gases produced in olefins 
manufacturing, which are considered the worst case for combustion and 
stability. Since in that prior action we approved an AMEL at 800 BTU/
scf for olefins gas, which is more likely than other types of waste gas 
to have issues with stability and tendency to smoke, and since Shell's 
reported waste gas composition contains relatively fewer olefinic 
compounds, we would expect better combustion efficiency/destruction 
efficiency at the same NHVcz. Therefore, we concur that achieving a 
minimum NHVcz of 800 BTU/scf in this case will ensure adequate 
combustion and destruction efficiency.

III. AMEL for the DCU MPGF

    The Agency is seeking the public's input on the request that the 
EPA approve the AMEL for this DCU MPGF. Specifically, the EPA seeks the 
public's input on the following proposed conditions of NHVcz >= 800 
BTU/scf for the Shell Martinez's DCU's MPGF.
    (1) The MPGF must be operated according to the requirements of the 
Petroleum Refinery MACT, including 40 CFR 63.670 and 63.671, except 
that all references to a combustion zone heating value of 270 BTU/scf 
are replaced with a value of 800 BTU/scf and the flare tip velocity 
requirements of 40 CFR 63.670(d) do not apply.
    (2) Each stage that cross-lights must have at least two pilots with 
a continuously lit pilot flame.
    (3) The operator of the DCU MPGF system shall install and operate 
pressure monitor(s) on the main flare header, as well as a valve 
position indicator monitoring system capable of monitoring and 
recording the position for each staging valve to ensure that the flare 
operates at normal maximum operating pressure of 15 pounds per square 
inch gauge as described in the AMEL application. The pressure monitor 
shall meet the requirements in Table 13 of 40 CFR 63, subpart CC.
    (a) The owner or operator of the Shell Martinez DCU MPGF shall meet 
the reporting requirements in the Petroleum Refinery MACT in 40 CFR 
63.655(g)(11)(i)-(iii). In addition, the Shell Martinez MPGF 
notification shall also include records specified in section (i)-(ii) 
below.
    (i) Records of when the pressure monitor(s) on the main flare 
header show the flare burners are operating outside the range of tested 
conditions or outside the range of the manufacturer's specifications. 
Indicate the date and time for each period, the pressure measurement, 
the stage(s) and number of flare burners affected, and the range of 
tested conditions or manufacturer's specifications.
    (ii) Records of when the staging valve position indicator 
monitoring system indicates that a stage of the flare should

[[Page 8718]]

not be in operation and is, or that a stage of the flare should be in 
operation and is not. Indicate the date and time for each such period, 
whether the stage was supposed to be open but was closed, or vice 
versa, and the stage(s) and number of flare burners affected.

IV. Request for Comments

    The EPA is soliciting comments on all aspects of the Shell Martinez 
request for approval of an AMEL for a DCU MPGF to be used to comply 
with the standards. The EPA specifically seeks comment regarding 
whether or not the alternative operating conditions of NHVcz >= 800 
BTU/scf discussed in section III above will achieve the combustion 
efficiency and/or destruction efficiency required at 40 CFR 63.670(r).

    Dated: March 6, 2019.
Panagiotis Tsirigotis,
Director, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards.
[FR Doc. 2019-04349 Filed 3-8-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6560-50-P


