Bright, distant flames have been spotted in the night sky in western Singapore this week, raising concerns about whether there was a huge fire.
Nothing of the sort. The flames were a result of an industrial combustion process known as flaring on Jurong Island.
Oil and gas company ExxonMobil told The Straits Times yesterday that flaring is ongoing at its chemical plant here owing to maintenance works.
"Flaring is expected to continue. A flare is a safety device that burns excess hydrocarbon gases which cannot be processed, in this case due to maintenance work. The public is advised not to be alarmed," the company said, adding that it tries to minimise flaring.
On Wednesday and Thursday, blazes and plumes of smoke were visible in the night sky in western Singapore. A video filmed by an ST reader shows two balls of fire burning brightly in the sky.
The reader, who declined to be named, said she saw the flames at about 11pm on Wednesday and Thursday from her residential college in the National University of Singapore's University Town.
"There was some smoke and the flames were flickering. It looked like there was a fire on what appeared to be a crane," she said.
Engineer Joseph Lim, 27, was nearby in Dover when he saw flickering red lights in the sky.
"There seemed to be clouds of white smoke rising slowly in the sky and they got thicker over time. There were no explosive sounds or the smell of smoke from where I was," he said.
The flames were also spotted farther away. Undergraduate Clarice See, 22, saw the flames from her Ang Mo Kio flat at about 1am on Thursday. "I was puzzled by the light. I thought it was fireworks but it was flickering non-stop, so I assumed it was a fire," she said.
ST understands the police were not alerted and no firefighting help was required from the Singapore Civil Defence Force.
The flaring process on Jurong Island which produced the flames is believed to be part of normal combustion processes by companies there.
ExxonMobil's website states that flares are important safety devices used in refineries and petrochemical facilities.
"They safely burn excess hydrocarbon gases which cannot be recovered or recycled," it says. "Excess hydrocarbon gases are burned in the flare systems in an environmentally sound manner, as an alternative to releasing the vapour directly into the atmosphere."
The process of burning the excess gases is similar to the burning of liquefied petroleum gases, which some people use as fuel for cooking, the website adds.
