The metering of hydrocarbons used to be easy. You had two choices:orifice for gas and turbine meters for liquid. The orifice plate was inspected once a year and the turbine meter was validated against an on-line prover. Each field had a dedicated transportation system; pipeline or tanker. Designers, fabricators and operators worked within very clear parameters and the management of metering systems from operation to reporting was simplicity itself. Not any more. Today, the industry is more demanding technically and metering engineers must adopt more innovative and cost conscious approaches to its challenges. Operators demand cost effective ways of developing new fields. It has become normal practice to share transportation systems and, as a consequence, we need to focus much more clearly on the allocation of hydrocarbon products, both in quantity and quality. Operators want to develop fields with as little as 7 million barrels of recoverable reserves. They want them to be profitable and, in order to ensure your countries survival as a net producer, your Governments need to encourage such developments. Reducing the cost of designing, building and operating metering/allocation systems can make a significant contribution to the process. This paper offers a blueprint that confronts the challenges and proposes viable solutions to them.
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