Vol. 5 No. 2
Subject: Flow Measurement News
Date: 2-11-03

From: McCrometer, "The Flow Measurement Specialists"
........ http://www.mccrometer.com ........

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This newsletter is e-mailed by McCrometer monthly to subscribers worldwide. It consists of flow measurement information of interest for professionals in this field.

For More information on our complete line of flowmeters go to: http://www.mccrometer.com

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McCrometer Newsletter - February 2003

Subsea Flow Metering

Subsea metering is going to be an ongoing growth area for meter manufacturers. It is a very demanding application, requiring attention to a number of technologies e.g. materials capable of resisting corrosion from internal fluids and also from the sea water: pressure retention capability both internally and externally: subsea instrumentation, electrical, and pressure connection which will not fail in the subsea environment: flow measurement capable of operating for 25 years without failure.

In a recent technical paper Dr Tore LØland of Statoil stated “ Future field developments will include wet gas or gas condensate fields with a very high Gas Volume Fraction (GVF). In these cases, a gas separator for well testing is often not a possible option and inline wet gas meters will be important to the field operators for well testing, continuous reservoir monitoring and production optimization, allocation and flow assurance.”

He continued, saying” The water detection capability of wet gas meters will be particularly important because, for some of the installations, even small amounts of formation water will be critical.”

“As an example, Statoil is currently developing two subsea fields where the selected corrosion mitigation philosophy totally depends on the use of a wet gas meter technology that includes the detection of formation water. The SnØhvit field (GVF greater than 99%) is a subsea-to-beach development offshore northern Norway, whereas Mikkel (GVF 91-98%) is a small satellite-to-satellite field offshore mid Norway.”

The goal being a subsea meter that would be able to detect the first onset of water presence so that an oil company could immediately halt production from that particular field. The delicate balance of using pipe materials, which are cost effective but not able to withstand the corrosive properties of salt water, are being tested and refined as of this writing.

“TotalFineElf has also, on a general basis, identified the inline wet gas metering as a key point in many future field developments. In particular, deeper gas reserves in subsea fields far away from existing facilities has given rise to the conception of longer subsea tieback in which an increasing number of wells or even fields are connected to a single flow-line. Such applications will benefit from the use of wet gas meter installed on each wellhead of a subsea manifold”

There are a few metering companies addressing these question now and McCrometer is working with them to incorporate the V-Cone into this critical development for the oil and gas industry. Stay tuned.

Ref:Øystein Lund BØ et al “New Compact Wet Gas Meter Based on a Microwave Water Detection Technique and Differential Pressure Flow Measurement” , North Sea Flow Measurement Workshop, Oct. 2002

Put your trust in McCrometer. To find out more about our range of flow measurement products, contact us at 951-652-6811 or visit our web-site at http://www.mccrometer.com.
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Copyright 2003 McCrometer

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