This paper presents an overview of wet gas multiphase metering and a new meterdesign to meet future offshore challenges. The design introduces new microwaveelectronics, transmission as well as resonance measurements, a salinitymeasurement system, reduced PVT dependence and a new HP/HT design.
Building on the success of wet gas metering in accuracy and reliability, thenew meter increases operators' ability to detect the onset of formation waterproduction and accurately measure flow rates where an increasing amount ofliquid and water is present in the flow (due to gas wells produced over a widerrange of process conditions).
The new meter design will have an increased importance for subsea tiebacksapplications. While today's wet gas meters are well suited for subsea tiebacks, current subsea developments require longer horizontal production pipelines, where accurate and sensitive measurement of water is crucial to ensure flowassurance and maintain maximum production capacity of the pipeline.
Furthermore, the restrictive and remote nature of subsea fields means that thecosts for subsea interventions and periodic fluid sampling (PVT) are high. Thenew meter is more robust to changes in PVT (fluid composition) and reduces theneed for frequent fluid sampling.
The paper will describe the development and technology choices of the newinstrument and how it will meet future subsea field demands.
It will explain how the new microwave electronics provides more stable andaccurate measurements; how transmission and resonance measurements extend theoperating range to 80–100% GVF and 0–100% WLR; how two complementarytechnologies - a salinity probe for liquid film measurements at low GVF andFormation Water Detection Function software for droplets measurements at highGVF, provide the first complete salinity measurement system in wet gasapplications.
The paper will also show how multivariate analysis and new measurements enablethe meter to compensate automatically for changes in produced fluidcomposition.
The paper will be highly significant to oil and gas operators looking toincrease flow assurance and oil & gas production from wet gas fields andmeet the growing offshore challenges of varying process conditions, intervention costs, and subsea tie-backs.
