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Article Practical Guidelines For Designing Oil Gas Custody Metering Systems Daniel en 43928
Article Practical Guidelines For Designing Oil Gas Custody Metering Systems Daniel en 43928
Article Practical Guidelines For Designing Oil Gas Custody Metering Systems Daniel en 43928
Custody Transfer:
Flowmeter as Cash Register
When bulk liquid or gas products change hands, everyone has to agree on the quantity
and the product quality. This puts very special demands on instrumentation.
E
Emerie Dupuis and very process plant in the world takes in bulk tankers, railroad cars, or pipelines—also get paid for the
Gerard Hwang raw materials and fuel from tanker ships, amount of materials they move. Companies that push gas
Daniel Measurement railroad cars, tanker trucks, or pipelines. through a pipeline, for example, operate on a slim margin of
and Control, Refineries, chemical plants, pharmaceutical a few pennies per MCF (million cubic feet), so they want to
Emerson Process companies, and a host of other industries know exactly how much is involved.
Management have to measure raw materials and finished products Whether it is oil, gas, or chemicals, a tiny error of
accurately, because they pay for what comes in and even 0.25% in the flow measurement of materials being
get paid for what goes out. transferred can cost a company millions of dollars in one
Transportation companies—the ones who own the year. A very large custody transfer system can meter
$6,000,000 worth of natural gas
per day, or $2.2 billion per year. If
the measurement is off by 0.25%,
that’s an error of $15,000 per day
or $5.5 million per year in some-
body’s favor.
The terms custody transfer and
fiscal metering are often inter-
changed. Custody transfer takes
place any time fluids are passed
from the possession of one
party to another. It refers
to metering that is a point
of a commercial transac-
Figure 2: Typical instal- tion such as when a change in ownership takes place. meters have become the flowmeters of choice for cus-
lation of an ultrasonic In general, custody transfer involves: tody transfer in the oil and gas industry.
meter has a five diam- • Industry standards; Ultrasonic meters provide volumetric flow rate. They
eter (5D) settling zone • National metrology standards; typically use the transit-time method, where sounds
approach section ahead • Contractual agreements between custody transfer waves transmitted in the direction of fluid flow travel
of the conditioner parties; and faster than those traveling upstream. The transit time
plate and a ten diam- • Government regulation and taxation. difference is proportional to fluid velocity. The aver-
eter approach section Custody transfer metering systems must meet age axial velocity multiplied by the area of the pipe then
between the plate and requirements set by industry bodies such as AGA, gives the uncorrected volumetric flow rate through the
meter. The 5D discharge API, or ISO, and national metrology standards such ultrasonic flow meter transmitter. Mass flow rates can be
section allows suffi- as OIML (International), NIST (U.S.), PTB (Germany), determined in conjunction with densitometers.
cient space to locate a CMC (China), and GOST (Russia), among others. Ultrasonic flow meters have negligible pressure
thermowell 2-5D down- A number of flowmeter technologies are used for drop, have high turndown capability, and can handle
stream (typically 3D). metering: orifice (differential pressure), turbine, posi- a wide range of applications. Crude oil production,
tive displacement, Coriolis, and ultrasonic. While the transportation, and processing are typical applications
same basic technologies are used for normal process for this technology. Their full-bore configuration can
control, the very large volumes involved in most cus- match the pipe diameter to minimize compression
tody transfer applications demand accuracy typically or pumping energy required to move oil or gas over
greater than for process metering, because it is the cash thousands of pipeline miles across continents. Newer
register. meters extend the temperature and viscosity range to
For instance, liquid custody transfer meters used address applications like the heavy crudes found in oil
to measure refined hydrocarbons have accuracy of sands and oil shale. Advanced models have extensive
±0.125% or better, and repeatability in the range of diagnostics which help reduce measurement uncer-
±0.02%. tainty and simplify operations. Spool-piece ultrason-
Custody transfer requires an entire metering sys- ic meters are commonly available in 2 to 24 in. pipe
tem that is designed and engineered for the applica- sizes.
tion, not just flowmeters. Components of a custody Coriolis flowmeters provide direct mass flow mea-
transfer system typically include: surement, with high accuracy and repeatability over
• Multiple meters/meter runs; wide turndown ratios. They maintain those quali-
• Flow computers; ties even when fluid conditions such as density, vis-
• Quality systems (gas chromatographs for to mea- cosity, and composition change frequently. Micro
sure energy content of natural gas and sampling sys- Motion first introduced Coriolis meters to the mar-
tems for liquid); ket in the 1970s. In 2002, after decades of successful
• Calibration using in-place or mobile provers for measurement, the American Petroleum Institute (API)
liquid, or master-meter for liquid or gas; and approved their use for custody transfer applications
• Supporting automation. (API Chapter 5.6). Coriolis meters are used on lines
Figure 1 illustrates a typical liquid custody transfer from less than 1 to 12 in.
skid, including multiple flowmeters and meter prover.
Provers are used to calibrate meters in-situ. Proves are In search of accuracy
performed frequently, typically before, during, and Accuracy refers to the closeness of the measurement
after a batch transfer for metering assurance. to the true or accepted value. Each device (flowmeter,
pressure transmitter, temperature sensor, BTU analyz-
Ultrasonic and Coriolis flowmeters er, etc.) has its manufacturer-stated accuracy specifi-
Custody transfer measurements have been around for cation and its tested accuracy. Uncertainty takes all
a long time, and were often based on orifice flowme- the metering system factors that impact measurement
ters, turbines, and positive displacement meters. These accuracy into account. So, two ±0.125% accuracy
flowmeters induce pressure drop or have moving parts flowmeters could be used in two different metering
that wear out. systems that ultimately have different calculated
Over the past ten years, Coriolis and ultrasonic uncertainties due to other “things” in the system that
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