MEASUREMENT REVIEW

Navigating The
Petroleum Measurement
Perfect Storm
By Michael Squyres, Flow-Cal, Inc., Houston, TX

60 Pipeline & Gas Journal / December 2014 / www.pgjonline.com

MEASUREMENT REVIEW
A “boom paradox” is creating the perfect storm in liquids
hydrocarbons measurement. Baby boomers hired during an
earlier peak in the industry are retiring. Exiting with them is
vast knowledge in areas such as measurement. Thanks mainly to shale
plays, the industry is booming and new players are entering the market.
Simultaneously, the industry is in the process of implementing signifi-
cantly updated measurement standards. Can measurement operations
ride out the storm?
The baby boomers were hired during the good times that lasted into
the early 1980s. When oil prices dropped from $35 a barrel to as low as
$10, companies responded with hiring freezes and layoffs that stretched
well over a decade. An industry that had a peak of 860,000 jobs in 1982,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shed more than a half mil-
lion of them by 2000.
That created an age gap in workers, which now that members of the
baby-boom generation are heading for the doors, is leaving the industry
with no one to replace their knowledge and experience. Schlumberger
Business Consulting has projected that by 2016, retirements of baby
boomers would mean a deficit of 15,300 “experienced petro-technical
professionals,” about 19% of the workforce.
A recent analysis from recruiting firm Russell Reynolds and
Associates gathered input from 30 of the top oil, gas and power compa-
nies and found 61% of executives in those companies are older than 52
and eyeing retirement. In short, there are more executives and profes-
sionals ready to retire than there are ready to take their places. And the
ones who are stepping in don’t have as much experience.
New Players
As the industry scrambles to train replacements for the depart-
ing boomers, interest in shale plays is bringing two new groups of
participants into the market: start-up trading companies and natural
gas companies.
The trading companies don’t run operations such as production
or pipelines and lack staff measurement experts. They are unfa-
miliar with liquids measurement calculations and how to imple-
ment them. At the same time, traditional natural gas operators are
expanding into liquids in order to take advantage of the high oil
prices relative to gas prices. These gas operators are quickly real-
izing that there are many differences between natural gas measure-
ment and liquids measurement.
Billions of dollars per day of liquid hydrocarbons are being traded
and uncertainties over calculations need to be minimized.
While these changes are taking place, the American Petroleum
Institute (API), Gas Processors Association (GPA) and American
Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) have created and updated
numerous standards that address the methodology and techniques for
accurate measurement of hydrocarbon fluids.
These fluids range from natural gases to light natural gas liquids to heavy
crude oils and petrochemicals. The industry standards provide guidelines on
static and dynamic measurement, primary meter selection and operation,
meter-proving procedures and the fluid’s physical property correction factors,
which are used to state volumes and densities to contractual conditions.
There is much history behind the measurement and calculation
standards. Correction factors to account for the thermal expansion of
liquid hydrocarbons date back to 1916 when they were published by the
National Bureau of Standards. Since then, standards have been updated
and many new ones have been introduced.
In 2004, API released a new set of physical property tables that
includes, among a broad range of updates, pressure and temperature
effects on density. The 1980 tables had considered density and tempera-
ture but not pressure. By incorporating pressure correction, the 2004
standard now encompasses three-dimensional tables.
Since 2002, there have been numerous updates to standards includ-
ing metering and physical properties. A major update to Chapter 11,
Section 1, “Temperature and Pressure Volume Correction Factors for
Generalized Crude Oils, Refined Products, and Lubricating Oils,” is
reverberating throughout the industry. For those fluids, the standard
establishes a procedure by which density measurements taken at any
temperature and pressure can be corrected to an equivalent density
at base conditions.
Although the update was effective in 2004 with a revision in 2007,
grandfather clause effects have delayed implementation to the point that
even today it is still considered new.
Implementation Of New Standard
As the boomers depart, along with their expertise in the tables
through 1980, how do the new players on the scene implement the
2004-2007 standards?
Complicating matters is that API MPMS 11.1 does not address all
the hydrocarbon fluids. Most LPGs and NGLs are less dense than the
liquids covered by this standard, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is, as well.
Implementers must look to other API MPMS chapters or sources, such
as the GPA Technical Publication TP-27 for hydrocarbons such as the
LPGs and NGLs.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of producers and midstream operators
must track multiple fluids, natural gas, NGLs and heavier liquids — in their
systems. They use a variety of meters ranging from the traditional orifice,
positive displacement and turbine meters to newer technologies, including
cone, Coriolis and ultrasonic. Sitting on top of those meters is an ever-
expanding range of meter correctors and gas and liquids flow computers.
An operator that deals with multiple fluids must consolidate all the
information from such disparate technologies, verify the accuracy of the
data, apply any required fluid quality samples and then recalculate data
as needed. Once that is complete, the user can then perform an accurate,
systemwide inventory balance to look for any additional issues or miss-
ing data. That means implementing practically the entire API MPMS
and more. Are the baby boomer replacements, natural gas companies
and traders up to the challenge?
A group of industry experts has recognized the demand for accurate
tracking in such operations. To meet the emerging needs of oil and gas
producers and midstream operators, measurement software specialists
have partnered with several users to develop the capability to manage
natural gas, NGLs, petrochemicals, crude oils and refined products
within a single application.
Product Editor

with in-house applications. By avoid-

ing a considerable software develop-
ment effort, measurement personnel
can instead focus on optimizing their
business operations.
Liquids flow measurement appli-
cations must accommodate all the
meter types in API MPMS Chapter 5,
for which many changes were made
in 2005. In an example application,
a “characteristic editor” provides the
user access to virtually every meter
configuration item that is required in
measurement calculations.
To convert actual density, pressure
and temperature to standard condi-
tions, measurement applications must
meet all requirements in Chapter 11,
“Physical Properties Data,” and the
related Chapter 12, “Calculation of
Petroleum Quantities.”
As an illustration, a “products edi-
tor” allows users to set up the prod-
ucts that flow on liquid meters and
tickets. Setting up a product requires
knowing which API table or calcula-
tion is to be used for calculating the
correction for the temperature of the
liquid (CTL) and the correction for
The product editor in the measurement application allows for specification of which table to use for
the pressure of the liquid (CPL).
calculating correction factors.
Volume editing is a classic applica-
tion that is derived from circular chart measurement processing. Most
Measurement Automation information is uploaded from flow computers that are installed through-
The latest-generation measurement applications automate the cal- out the production, pipeline or terminal system. Since missing infor-
culations and processes that are described in the API MPMS, as well mation may need to be filled in or measurement errors corrected, the
as additional documents and standards, such as those from the GPA. editing function remains an important feature that continues to evolve.
This allows the industry’s new measurement personnel to bypass a Users must be able to view and edit all measurement points
formidable effort to implement the various standards and calculations including pressure, temperature, density, mass and volume as

Meter Characteristics Editor

The meter tab in a Flow-Cal application characteristic editor displays some of the configuration information from the meter, such as meter
type, meter factor and DMF.

Pipeline & Gas Journal / December 2014 / www.pgjonline.com 62

Volume Editor

In this application, the user can view a multitude of flow data information. The volume editor allows the user to view hourly, daily, batch and
monthly flow data, as well as characteristic and analysis data. It presents information in a tabular format or graphically.

highlighted in the next example. Once edits are complete, the
analyst needs to be able to have the volume and mass recalcu-
lated for reporting and to be sent to downstream accounting
systems. Applications incorporate manual processes, such as
sampler information for accurate calculation of corrected mass
and volumes.
Once a measurement error has been corrected, the measure-
ment application can re-state pressure, temperatures, volumes and
mass anomalies that have been resolved and create a full audit
trail. Contemporary applications meet and exceed the audit trail
requirements in API MPMS Chapter 21.1 and 21.2.
Conclusion
Built in to contemporary measurement applications software is the
vast expertise that, in the past, was reserved for the most accomplished
professionals. All the static and dynamic measurements, metering tech-
nologies, meter proving, physical properties, flow calculations, calibra-
tion, data processing, auditing and verification processes are included.
By automating all the calculations and processes that are described in
the API MPMS, as well as additional documents and standards, such as
those from the GPA, such software provides a comprehensive petroleum
measurement solution that a new generation of professionals can rapidly
put to work. P&GJ

Edit Reasons

For each edit, the application tracks and displays when an edit was made, what time frame was covered by the edit and why it was made.

Eprinted and posted with permission to Flow-Cal from Pipeline & Gas Journal
December © 2014 Oildom Publishing.

Flow-Cal, Inc.
2525 Bay Area Blvd., Suite 500
Houston, Texas 77058
281-282-0865 | info@flowcal.com | www.flowcal.com
63 Pipeline & Gas Journal / December 2014 / www.pgjonline.com