The flow rate in the oil and gas industry is extremely important to understand, especially knowing how to properly calculate it. Read this guide for more information.
The oil and gas industry is a major commercial enterprise in the energy market and always plays a highly influential role in the global economy. It is the world’s primary source. The systems and processes involved in producing as well as distributing oil and gas are capital-intensive, highly complex, and always require advanced technology.
This article briefly discusses flow assurance, how to calculate the flow rate for oil and gas, flow assurance, and the significance of flow rate in the oil and gas industry.
Flow Assurance
The increasing demand for considerable energy, along with the fluctuations in natural gas and oil prices, has called for a review of existing production, transportation, as well as storage technologies for oil and gas. New state-of-the-art technologies have also been introduced for oil and gas well development that significantly boost production efficiency and economics.
However, a major obstacle that has risen as companies dig deeper underground and underwater is how to fiscally deliver highly valuable hydrocarbon resources from the reservoir to the consumer or end-user.
This has led scientists and oil and gas producers to coin the term: flow assurance.
Flow assurance is the economic and successful flow of hydrocarbon streams from the reservoir to the consumer or point of sale. It focuses primarily on the production and engineering lifecycle, i.e., from the reservoir to processing and refining, in order to ensure that the hydrocarbons can be seamlessly transported from the reservoir to the refinery without interruption.
Flow assurance covers several flow-related issues, including;
- Slugging
- Emulsions
- Hydrates formation
- Sand production
- Wax formation, etc.
Causes of Flow Assurance Failure
The most prominent obstacle encountered during production from a gas condensate reservoir has to do with the flow rate or how to deliver fluid seamlessly from the wells to the processing facility with little to no pressure drop.
Pressure drops within multi-phase flows are a major function of the flow pattern and liquid holdup. Determining the flow pattern within the pipeline as well as the liquid holdup helps in accurately predicting pressure drop.
Slug Flow
Slug flow is a phenomenon that occurs in the multi-phase flow and more commonly in most offshore processing facilities. This often includes risers to processing platforms as well as seabed pipelines.
It is, therefore, crucial to correctly predict slug frequency for proper processing facility design, including the precise sizing of slug catchers and separators.
Hydrates Crystallization
When free water is present within gas production pipelines, it helps to boost the formation of hydrates. This usually occurs under specific pressure and temperature conditions.
Hydrates are metastable, solidified compounds whose stability and properties depend on physical conditions like temperature and pressure. These ice-like compounds of gas hydrates easily crystallize from lighter hydrocarbons, hydrogen sulfide, free water, seed (silt/scale), and other gases.
When hydrates crystallize, they wholly or partially block the seamless flow of fluid within the pipes. This gives rise to a considerably reduced well production and backpressure on the wellhead.
The formation of hydrates can easily destroy the well. Accurate predictions of hydrates crystallization within pipelines helps to easily evaluate the issue and then take the necessary steps for solving it.
This is why it is important to study the pipe flow or flow rate – using flow meter devices – in order to achieve efficiency and successful production.
Flow Rate and the Importance of Flow Rate Measurement
Flow rate deals with the volume of fluid that moves through a given cross-sectional area per unit of time. It is usually measured accurately via the use of a flowmeter. The importance of measuring flow rate cannot be overstated. An accurate flow rate ensures the smooth running of fluid control processes cost-effectively and safely.
Several advantages come with measuring flow rate accurately. But before then, let’s discuss how to calculate the flow rate for oil and gas.
How to Calculate Flow Rate for Oil and Gas
Most flow rate measurement devices provide inferential flow rate calculations based primarily on the fluid’s velocity. The pressure differential that forces the fluid right through the pipe determines the velocity of the fluid.
The pipe’s cross-sectional area remains constant, making the average velocity of the fluid a highly reliable criterion or yardstick of the flow rate.
The Advantages of Measuring the Flow Rate of Oil and Gas
Accurate flow rate measurement has 3 distinct advantages as outlined below:
- Quality Control
Flow rate measurement is one of the essential parameters of several applications. It is always crucial to verify that the right fluid passes through the right channel and to the right place at the right time, irrespective of whether you measure liquids or gases.
Flow rate measurements are much more crucial in applications that require strict or highly detailed quality control, such as batch control, time-pressure dosing processes within the pharmaceutical industry, etc.
- Cost-Efficiency
Adhering strictly to the extremely high standards of plant safety and quality control has several inherent cost-efficiencies.
For instance, in the F&B and pharmaceutical applications, using flowmeters regularly ensures the detection of dead legs and helps minimize the wastage of highly expensive media. This is one of the many cost benefits that come with regular flow rate measurement.
Moreover, if machinery and pipelines keep operating optimally, the ensuing reduction in overall maintenance delivers tangible savings.
- Health and Safety
Operators ‘ or personnel’ overall health and safety should always be the focus of every industrial process, including those heavily involved with gases and liquids. Taking accurate and highly reliable flow rate measurements regularly remains one of the best – and most efficient – ways of ensuring the safety or protection of personnel.
When the environment is entirely safe for personnel to carry out their duties, it engenders a much more productive state of affairs. Downtime is kept to the barest minimum while machinery operates efficiently.
Conclusion
The importance of flow assurance within the oil and gas industry cannot be overstated. When flow assurance fails, the result may be catastrophic.
This is why it is always crucial to measure and calculate the flow rate for oil and gas. This helps to detect bottlenecks or dead legs, which can readily be fixed in order to prevent minimized outputs or flow assurance failure.