-n- WER GAS FLOW METERING Introduction ‘The flow metering of gas with small amounts of entrained liquid is a problem common to both gas and oil production facilities. On gas facilities, the gas from the wellhead often has entrained water or condensate and on oil facilities, the gas from separators tends to be wet as it is not economical to build separators big enough to ensure that all the liquids are removed from the gas offtake. A good wet gas flow meter can also replace test separators on gas fields making the development cheaper and simpler. This is particularly important for offshore fields where the cost of providing a structure to support the separator is fac higher than the cost of the separation facilities themselves. For small fields, this simplification can make the difference between the project being economically viable or not. ‘Techniques Conventional differential pressuce type meters, either orifice plate or venturi, are suprisingly easy to compensate for entrained liquid. Although no expression to correct for the effect of wetness has gained universal acceptance, the various expressions proposed give almost the same answers when applied to natural gas at typical pressures (50-150 bars) with typical liquid to gas ratios (0-400 w/i0® normal w). one of the earliest gas/condensate investigations was carried out by Schuster! in the late 1950s. He found that liquid entrainment always increases the differential pressure across an orifice and that there were no significant differences between the effects of water and condensate. He didn't propose a universal flow expression but did come to the conclusion that for his range of tests ( 62 Bars and liquid levels of 0 - 450 m? lia/ 10° normal m? gas) the increase in reading was 0.03% per 2 of liquid. Murdock?, in 1962, expression a relation which has been the basis for many of the investigations since. He considered flow through orifice plates and used a flow model in which the liquid and gas flowed separately through the plate. He then correlated his theoretical relationship with experimental data over a large range of pressures (1 - 62 Bars), considering both water/steam flow and gas/liquid flow. His results, shown in Fig. 1 for the gas/liquid experiments, confirm Schuster's findings although the slope of the line is slightly different. Murdock proposed one of the most useful expressions ~ (=x) Ce», 1 + 1.26 ee v4)-m- Another expression which covers an even wider range of conditions was proposed by Chisholm? + ~ 9 = ——— te Svat ey + ayy where ¥ = 7h ¥(p)/e,) “4 for low liquid levels. ee wey u and K = (p,/P,) (24/0) Chisholm again treated the flow through the orifice as separated liquid and gas flow but he solved the equations in terms of momentum. However, neither Murdock or Chisholm considered natural gas at well flowline conditions. Fig 2. shows a comparison of both the Murdock and Chisholm expressions with some in house measurements made with venturi meters in well Elowlines at pressures between 80 and 100 bars. The first point of interest is that the agreement between the two expressions is excellent despite them being of very different forms. Secondly, the agreement between the expressions and the test measurements, although not perfect, is good. The differences probably arise because neither Murdock nor Chisholm considered venturi meters. As the relationship between meter over-reading and wetness fraction is linear a simpler expression than Murdock's or Chisholm could be used. Such an expression was proposed by Matter et al*. They proposed the expression 1+b (70) The advantage of using this expression is that it can be programmed into many standard flow computers without a software revision. The disadvantage, however, is that if the pressure or density change significantly then the coefficient b must be recalculated or re-measured, Matter did not propose any expression to calculate b from known fluid properties. Practically, the alternatives ar use either Murdock's or Chisholm's expressions directly, = measure the coefficient in Matter's expression in the field and then use Matter's expression, = or calculate the coefficient in Matter's expression using either Chisholm's or Murdock's expression and then use Matter's equation. Some alternative meters are also promising but untried. vortex meters should be independent of small amounts of entrained liquid but field tests show significant deviations. These are probably due to liquid build up either around the pipe circumference or in the bottom of the pipe. Further work on these meters is currently underway at KSEPL. Ultra-sonic meters could alsonae work. They have no problem metering high pressure dry gas and, as long as Liquid can be kept away from the transducers, they should work with wet gas. ‘These are also the subject of a study at KSEPL. REFERENCES 1 R. Schuster, Wet gas can be measured accurately, World Oil, July 1959. 2 J.W Murdock, Two-phase flow measurement with orifices Journal of basic engineeriug, December 1962. 3. D. Chisholm, Plow of incompressible two-phase mixtures through sharp edge orifices, Journal o£ mechanical engineering science, Vol. 9 No. 1 1967 4D. Chisholm, Research note: Two-phase flow through sharp edge orifices Journal of mechanical engineering science, I Mech E 1977. 5 . Matter, K. Aziz, G, Gregory and M. Nicholson, Orifice metering of two-phase flow, SPE 7411, Society of petroleum engineers, 1978 Nomenclature Q, Flow of gas alone Q, Flow of Liquid alone Qyp Flow calculated from the measured differential pressure and the dry gas density x Gas quality (ratio of mass of gas to the total mass) , Discharge coefficient for gas é Expansion coeficient for gas C, Discharge coefficient for liquid Gas densi! Py Gas density pb, biquid density 1