Papers

Measurement technicians deal with electronic flow computing and field devices daily. Most of the field instrumentation are
tightly integrated in a complete system with interdependencies on several different electronic products. The larger the
metering station, the more complex the system.

This presentation addresses problems associated with moisture and corrosion caused by high relative humidity and airborne contaminants. By controlling moisture and corrosion long-term, many problems associated with sensitive field electronics can be avoided.

The measurement of oil & gas production has progressed considerably since the days of paper charts and manual integration. Technology has moved increasingly to microprocessor based flow computers allowing for greater measurement accuracy, increased control functionality, and ready integration into a company’s enterprise computer networks.

An ultrasonic meter falls into the classification of inferential meters. Unlike positive displacement meters that capture volume to totalize volume, inferential meters measure flowing gas velocity to totalize volume. Ultrasonic meters use sound waves to measure flowing gas velocity to infer volume.

Within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry, the custody transfer of natural gas is usually determined by orifice measurement which is governed by a sales agreement between the producer and pipeline company.

Orifice plate meters are one of the most widely used technologies in industry for gas flow metering. This is due to their
relative simplicity, the extensive publicly available data sets that led to several orifice plate meter standards [1, 2, 3, 4] and
the fact that they are a relatively inexpensive method of gas metering

Advancements in electronic gas and liquid measurement systems, SCADA systems, data management, and business intelligence software is increasing the access to reliable data. This is both good and bad for the measurement staff who rely on this data to make decisions.

Natural gas measurement today is accomplished through the use of two different classifications of gas meters. The first
consists of inferential type meters, including, orifice, ultra-sonic and turbine meters, and the second is the positive
displacement meters, which consist of diaphragm and rotary displacement meters.

Ultrasonic meters (USMs) have become widely used custody transfer meters for gas transmission and distribution measurement
systems. USMs have taken the place of measurement stations that have historically utilized orifice metering.

Meter inspections, configuration changes, calibration verification, troubleshooting, and gas sampling generate important
subsets of measurement data. Automated computer systems capture, process, store, and report this data better than manual,
paper-based systems; minimizing effort, time, resources, and error for field and office workers.