Metering & Measurement

Control Rooms: Achieving SCADA Operational Readiness, Compliance

(P&GJ) — Implementing a comprehensive control room management (CRM) plan in today’s energy market can be a challenging task in that integrating it with modern supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems adds layers of complexity to the project’s implementation and compliance requirements.

Tech Notes: Unpiggable In-Line Inspection Completed in South America

(P&GJ) — A team of Dexon pipeline engineers recently completed the inspection of a 20-mile (32-km), 3-inch diameter unpiggable or “challenging” underground petrochemical distribution pipeline, running from an onshore processing facility to a port on the South American coast.

Learning to Manage Risk of Over-Pressurizing Gas Pipelines

(P&GJ) — According to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2020, the world consumed 3.7 Tcf of natural gas. In other words, nearly 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas was transported daily from production sites to homes, businesses, and power plants worldwide through pipelines spread across millions of miles. Most of these pipelines operate underground, 24/7, quietly delivering a vital service to people across continents.

Being Certain of Flow Measurement Meter Uncertainty

For many years, the oil and gas industry has widely believed that the production test separator gives the most accurate flow rate measurements. However, realistically, it’s unlikely to be used because of the sheer size of a separator, which creates mobility issues such as the need to lift it with cranes and a requirement for ruggedized equipment for shocks and vibrations.

Kellas Midstream Installs Real-Time Methane Monitoring Sensors at Teesside Gas Terminal

Kellas Midstream, the BlackRock and GIC backed company responsible for transporting 40% of the U.K.’s domestic gas production, has deployed continuous emissions monitoring at its Teesside Central Area Transmission System terminal in partnership with Project Canary.

Securing Pipeline Flow Measurement and Metering

Maintaining safe, reliable and profitable pipeline operations requires a high degree of trust. This is especially true for remote users who must have faith that the conditions are safe and that the person or device requesting the operation has authorization to do so.

Texas Railroad Commission Implements Operator-led Plan to Reduce West Texas Earthquakes

In the Western Permian Basin, the Railroad Commission began implementation last week of a first of its kind operator-led response plan that addresses injection-induced seismicity to help keep residents and the environment safe.

Thermal-Mass Measurement Principle and Metering Selection

The European Green Deal is the strategic plan to make the European Union carbon neutral by 2050. Decarbonizing the energy sector will be vital to achieving this goal, as this sector contributes significantly to Europe’s CO2 emissions.

Implementation Struggles of PHMSA’s Fatigue Mitigation Regulations

Fatigue is one of a controller’s greatest threats. Despite restrictions that have transpired for monitoring and mitigating controller fatigue in the past decade, fatigue is not a new worry within the oil and gas industry.

Russian Gas Flows to Germany via Yamal Pipeline Unchanged

Russian gas continued flowing via the Yamal-Europe pipeline to Germany at Thursday levels, preliminary data from German network operator Gascade showed, below volumes seen earlier in the week when Gazprom started to increase supplies to refill its storage.

A Guide to New Robotics, Drone Technologies for Pipelines

Today, the pipeline industry can buy a wide range of technologies for automating, managing, monitoring, repairing and improving safety of pipeline infrastructure and operations.

Highway Traffic and the Effect on Pipelines

Ruptures of natural gas pipelines in right-of-ways of roadways are less common, but when they occur, the devastation can be far more extensive than the more common ruptures.

US Unveils Crackdown on Methane from Oil and Gas Industry

The Biden administration unveiled a plan to slash emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas operations, drawing cautious support from both environmental groups and drillers.

Leveraging 2 Kinds of Wisdom to Support Asset Integrity

For most pipeline integrity and risk assessment programs, there are two main sources of information, including measurement-driven data that is fed into computational risk assessment tools and information obtained from human observation or perception.

3-D Metal Loss Profiles from MFL Data

The responsible methodologically inherent MFL principal of ambiguity can be overcome: the groundbreaking Deep Field Analysis approach calculates 3-D profiles from MFL with high repeatability.

Operator Exceeds Requirements with Clamp-On Flow Meter Run Design

As a transporter, a company commits to the safe and reliable transfer of natural gas in adherence to the guidelines set forth by the American Gas Association (AGA), including the specifications outlined in its AGA Report No. 9, “Measurement of Gas by Multipath Ultrasonic Meters."

Challenges of Installing a New Pipeline

During the installation of a new pipeline, corrosion engineers must consider many different aspects of the pipeline and its corrosion protection. On the surface it may appear simple, thinking only of coatings and cathodic protection, but once construction is underway, the tasks are many.

Live Mapping of HAZ Softening in Pipeline Seam, Girth Welds

Modern pipeline grades, such as X70 and X80, improve many properties but come with undesirable features such as heat-affected zone (HAZ) softening in seam and girth welds.

Halliburton Develops Non Intrusive Pipeline Inspection Method for Unpiggable Lines

Halliburton’s technology team have been developing InnerVue non-intrusive diagnostics technology for several years. Advances in computing power and experience gained through numerous data collections in the field have moved the technology to a point where it can now be considered as an alternative for traditional intrusive ILI techniques.

Validating Meter Accuracy Simplified Using Flow Conditioning

AGA Report No. 9 requires flow calibration for all applications to reduce the meter’s overall uncertainty. Because of field installation effects, AGA 9 also discusses uncertainty requirements that an ultrasonic meter manufacturer must meet once the meter is installed.

Enhancing Safety with Integrated Rupture Disk Assemblies

For decades, rupture disks have served the oil and gas industry as an effective, passive safety mechanism to protect against overpressure or potentially damaging vacuum conditions.

Project Canary to Measure Greenhouse Gases from Rio Grande LNG Facility

NextDecade Corporation and Project Canary announced the formation of a joint pilot project for monitoring, reporting, and measurement of the greenhouse gas intensity of LNG to be sold from NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG export facility in Brownsville, Texas.

New Analysis Tool Can Help Solve Gas and Steam Transient Problems in Pipelines

Applied Flow Technology (AFT) says its new AFT xStream analysis software tool can help engineers rigorously evaluate and solve gas and steam transient engineering problems they have only been able to guess at in the past.

CASE STUDY: Free Span Assessment of Subsea Pipelines

Free spanning of subsea pipelines is a concern during both the installation and operational phase of the pipeline life and needs to be monitored to ensure the integrity of the pipeline.

Diagnostic in Bidirectional Prover - An Innovative Approach

It is important to accurately measure hydrocarbon commodities transferred through pipelines or marine terminals to maximize revenue generation at the point where the ownership of the commodity is transferred.

PART 2: Policy Implications for Satellite-Based Methane Detection

Access to publicly available satellite methane data from TROPOMI, and in future platforms such as those being planned by the ESA Copernicus missions, are animating interest from for-profit companies and not-for-profit advocacy groups interested in using methane data to advance these organizations’ missions.

Integrating Flow Assurance Engineering Domains Ensures Operations in Caspian Sea

Once the term “flow assurance” was coined in the 1990s, continued evolution in the offshore marketplace has demanded that the industry invest in advancing the design, strategies and principles that form the core of the field.

Gassco Changes Make Norway Gas Flows Harder to Gauge - Analysts

Norwegian gas pipeline operator Gassco launched a revamped data website this week that switches away from live physical flows, drawing criticism from analysts who say it has reduced transparency in a key energy market.

Dresser NGS Expands Product Line with Acquisition of Flow Safe

Dresser Natural Gas Solutions has acquired Flow Safe in a move that enables the Houston-based measurement and instrumentation provider to offer over-pressure protection for its natural gas customers.

Building a Gas Utility for Future Prosperity

Nicor Gas, the largest natural gas distribution company in Illinois with 2.2 million customers, is one provider that has embraced new opportunities by launching a robust meter modernization program.