Papers

With the recent release of the Green House Gas Regulations, the increased visibility of flaring natural gas and
increased awareness of royalty owners, the ability to accurately measure and account for the amount of product
flared from a facility has become increasingly important to regulators,

There are many factors that must be considered to properly design a liquid measurement station. While many of the components of measurement stations are similar, the criterion that determines the equipment to utilize for a given application or product can vary significantly from project to project.

Measurement requires the highest level of ethical integrity in an industry that relies on ethical integrity at every level. A
measurement professional is the provider of data to all the other professionals involved in the petroleum industry. If the
measurement professional fails at their assigned duties, all the other branches of this industry make decisions based on poor
data, or, in the worst case, false data.

This paper is intended to provide meter station designers with a basic methodology for selection of an appropriate flow meter (or meters) for a given application. Since many applications require that a meter station operate over a broad range of flow rates or loads, an example is provided on how to address system rangeability while …

Meter Selection for Various Load Requirements Read More »

Like any other piece of equipment, a measurement artifact must be maintained. Obviously, it has to be in working order in general. However, what is more important is that it be operating within specified parameters and providing measurements that are traceable to a known source or sources.

There are many in our industry who would consider the advancement of the ultrasonic meter to be one of the most important
improvements in gas measurement in the past twenty years.

With the proliferation of horizontal drilling allowing access to tight oil formations, liquid production in the U.S. has
significantly increased over recent years. Consequently, there is renewed interest in accurate measurements for both custody
transfer and allocation purposes. Advances in measurement automation have yielded operators’ savings in the millions of
dollars annually.

This paper summarizes a SCADA implementer’s perspective regarding the intent of the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) Control Room Management (CRM) rule.

There is no substitute for well maintained, properly installed, and properly performing measurement equipment. Industry-
standard measurement equipment installation, operation, and maintenance provide the raw data necessary for those dealing
with natural gas liquids (NGLs) to transact business. Then, this raw data can be adjusted or converted to values suitable for
transactions to take place and for proper accounting.

The American Gas Association published Report No. 9, Measurement of Gas by Multipath Ultrasonic Meters 2
nd Edition
[Ref 1] in April 2007. Report 9 details recommended practice for using multipath gas ultrasonic meters (USMs) in fiscal
(custody) measurement applications. This paper reviews some of the history behind the development of AGA Report No. 9
(often referred to as AGA 9), key Report contents, which includes information on meter performance requirements, design
features, testing procedures, and installation criteria. This paper also discusses changes that were incorporated in the latest
revision.