Three-phase flow measurement in the petroleum industry

Abstract

The problem of how to accurately measure the flowrate of oil–gas–water mixtures in a pipeline remains one of the key challenges in the petroleum industry. This paper discusses why three-phase flow measurement is still important and why it remains a difficult problem to solve. The measurement strategies and principal base technologies currently used by commercial manufacturers are described, and research developments that could influence future flowmeter design are considered. Finally, future issues, which will need to be addressed by manufacturers and users of three-phase flowmeters, are discussed.

Applications of tomography in the oil-gas industry – Part 2

“…Higher GVF wet-gas flow metering often requires different techniques to achieve good accuracy in liquid as well as gas flow rate measurements (Xie et al, 2007). Further descriptions of various commercial MPFMs and the measurement strategies can be found in an industrial monograph (Pinguet, 2012), text book (Falcone, Hewitt, & Alimonti, 2010) or review paper (Thorn, Johansen, & Hjertaker, 2012). Process tomography has been conceived to have the potential of measuring dynamic multiphase processes such as multiphase flows of complex regimes through a pipeline (Thorn et al, 1990;Plaskowski, Beck, Thorn, & Dyakowski, 1995;Williams & Beck, 1995;Chaouki, Larachi, & Dudukovic, 1997).…”

Detection of the gas–liquid two-phase flow regimes using non-intrusive microwave cylindrical cavity sensor

“…to name a few [1,2]. Out of these, the gas-liquid flow is one of the most common and the most complex types of flow.…”

Dual modality ECT–MIT multi-phase flow imaging

“…In [7], electrical impedance methods has been used in the three-phase flow measurement to provide electric resistance and capacitance for calculating the oil, gas and water fractions. Normally the three-phase flow is mixture of gas, oil and water.…”