HYDROCARBON
ENGINEERING
51
T
erminals and depots represent a large segment of the
oil and gas market, where high value products such as
hydrocarbons are received, purchased, stored,
treated, distributed and sold. Receipt and distribution
of the products is carried out using pipelines, ships, trucks or
railcars, and the invoices are based on the quantity of fluid
metered during these transactions.
Regardless of the current oil prices, the amount of money
involved is vital for the terminal, so, for each of these processes,
accurate and reliable data consolidation is a must. The
performance of any terminal is closely dependent on the
number of loads that can be made during a working day
without interruption by unplanned maintenance or, even worse,
by incidents on site that underline the need for safer, more
robust and more efficient metering systems. Facilities such as
this can benefit immensely from integrated, full metering
solutions from a single source supplier, rather than just ‘out of
the box’ instruments.
Custody transfer metering systems
In different industries, such as oil, gas and petrochemicals,
different metering applications can be found, including:
n
Allocation.
n
Process control.
n
Inventory.
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Custody transfer.
For each of these applications, different tasks and
performances are required. Custody transfer applications,
however, represent the most challenging requirements, as
Andrea Calò, Endress+Hauser Instruments International AG,
Switzerland,
describes how terminal loading and offloading
applications can benefit from safer, robust and more efficient
integrated metering systems.
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