ASTONISHING VERTICAL CALIBRATION OF ALTOSONIC 5 FLOWMETER

For an international oil company, KROHNE manufactured an unique, vertically constructed, fiscal metering system. The design of the metering system is unique due to vertical installation of the metering lines and due to the fact that the Ultrasonic flowmeters will be directly calibrated against a Small Volume Prover. The metering system is equipped with 4 highly accurate ultrasonic ALTOSONIC 5 flowmeters. They are used to perform fiscal measurement of crude oil during batch loading to tankers from an offshore submerged caisson of 48,000 m³ storage capacity. This project combines three unique features and capabilities:

1. Construction of a vertical custody transfer measuring skid with vertically installed ALTOSONIC 5 ultrasonic flowmeters,

2. Initial vertical calibration of the ALTOSONIC 5 ultrasonic flowmeters using Master Meters.

3. Vertical verification of the ALTOSONIC 5 ultrasonic flowmeter against a Small Volume Prover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae6vLPgvLXY 

The custody transfer ALTOSONIC 5 ultrasonic flowmeters have been manufactured at the KROHNE production facility and are compliant with the NPD (Norwegian Petroleum Directorate) quality standards. To ensure and confirm equipment’s performance, the customer requested the flowmeters to be calibrated in a vertical position at the EUROLOOP facility in Rotterdam. The flowmeters were calibrated over the applicable Reynolds range of approximate 80.000 to 1.000.000 at 5 flowrates with 5 repeats using the EuroLoop Master Meters as a reference. The calibration results were compliant to the customer’s requirements defined as:

• Performance band : ± 0.15 percent over its full operational flow range
• Uncertainty: 0.027 % following API standards.

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