McCrometer will exhibit the V-Cone FPSO flowmeter at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston in May. (Photo courtesy of McCrometer)

Flowmeter helps FPSOs shed weight, save space

McCrometer has released its newest V-Cone floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel flowmeter. The flowmeter offers proven differential pressure flow measurement technology with built-in flow conditioning that reduces upstream/downstream straight pipe run requirements by up to 70% or more. This significant reduction in pipe requirements adds up to cost savings in materials and installation labor while reducing overall weight and saving valuable deck space. Using less pipe and thereby reducing weight also can simplify vessel balancing, which makes it easier to find the optimal location for meter installation.

The effects of swirl and other pipeline disturbances caused by nearby valves or elbows often hamper flowmeter performance by negatively affecting measurement accuracy and repeatability. For this reason, most flowmeter installations require 10 to 40 straight pipe diameters upstream from the meter and five or more straight pipe diameters downstream to smooth the liquid flow profile prior to measurement. With built-in flow conditioning, the V-Cone flowmeter needs only zero to three straight pipe diameters upstream and zero to one downstream to operate effectively and maintain accuracy.

The V-Cone’s unique self-conditioning design provides an extremely stable flow profile, delivering high accuracy of +0.5% and repeatability of +0.1% over the entire range. The flowmeter is ideal for both topside and subsea FPSO applications measuring liquid, steam, or gas and supporting line sizes from 0.5 to 120 in. with a 10:1 turndown ratio for wide rangeability.

The V-Cone has no moving parts and requires virtually no maintenance or recalibration over an unprecedented long life, typically exceeding 25 years. With low permanent head loss, the flowmeter reduces the cost of ownership by minimizing energy requirements. For critical surge control compressor applications, it exhibits quick reaction time due to the low noise-to-signal ratio compared to other differential pressure technologies. With a feedback control loop the fast reaction of the V-cone can help avoid compressor damage and loss of production. www.mccrometer.com

New technology delivers unique imaging, monitoring capabilities

Schlumberger has expanded its Deep Reading portfolio with the release of its new electromagnetic DeepLook-EM enhanced crosswell reservoir imaging and monitoring system and the acquisition of crosswell seismic reservoir imaging technology. The services include pre-job planning, modeling, simulation, acquisition, processing, and inversion to deliver interwell reservoir images.

The second-generation DeepLook-EM system provides detailed resistivity profiles between wells up to almost a mile (1 km) apart using time-proven induction logging principles. Acquisition is performed using a dynamic transmitter sonde in one well and an array of receivers in an offset well. Receivers can be deployed in open or cased wells.

In development for more than seven years, the company has successfully completed DeepLook-EM surveys in the US, Canada, China, Brazil, and the Middle East. The crosswell images have provided customers vital information on the efficiency of waterflood and steamflood programs, allowing interwell saturation to be estimated and bypassed pay zones to be identified.

With time-lapse monitoring using DeepLook-EM, flood-front movement can be accurately depicted and tracked. All field data are compiled within Petrel seismic-to-simulation software, and are seamlessly integrated to model and interpret the reservoir volume logged.

Interwell seismic imaging can provide seismic velocity profiles and seismic imaging at resolutions an order of magnitude higher than surface seismic. This detailed information can be used to understand reservoir characterization at the reservoir scale and in a time-lapse mode to monitor fluid movements such as in steam injection and CO2 sequestration. www.slb.com/deeplook

— Rebecca Torrellas, Managing Editor