Liquid & Gas Flow Monitoring Business Driver

The pipeline flow measurement business has assumed a more important role in overall pipeline operation scene due to price & performance pressure on global oil & gas companies. The spiraling price of crude and gas forced the petroleum companies to look for more accurate measurement techniques, better knowledge about properties of fluids handled and wider application of electronic & software to accomplish superior data management and data integrity. The people who are responsible for flow measurement have a challenge to respond to improve their efficiency and profitability.

To take care of all these concerns, the pipeline operation managers are employing state of the art flow computers, volume correctors, and advanced SCADA software to manage and control within acceptable tolerance.

There are several operational challenges that need to be resolved to provide an economical and effective solution. Some of the challenges can be broadly categorized as follows:

Most prevalent with cross country pipelines, normal modes of communications such as cellular networks, telephones and cable medium are not available. In such cases, only satellite based communication is possible.

Many locations do not have auxiliary power that is required for powering the system. Solar based operations on a continuous basis are also not possible in some situations due to non-availability of sunlight on a continuous basis. A hybrid solution based on battery backup and solar panels is therefore employed in such situations.

Oil and Gas companies use flow computers from several manufacturers that do not talk the same language. The system therefore needs to be able to support various protocols and in some cases have multi-protocol support within the same unit.

CIMCON offered SCANET software and GSM/GPRS/Satellite communication enabled Remote Terminal Units with multi-protocol support to ensure seamless data integration for monitoring and metering.

Historical trending and multiple spreadsheet based reports improve the data analysis process.

• Multiple protocol support to communicate with a variety of flow computers.
• Very low power consumption
• Solar power option
• Log & store data with time stamping, and retain it even in case of power failure,
• Logic building using flowchart based programming
• Ability to generate real-time notifications via email and/or text messaging using SMS.
• Local / Remote programming of the configuration parameters,
• Enabling and disabling of alarms on cell phones by system verified & authenticated users,

• Fully web based
• Scalable to respond to growing network need
• High Availability
• Easy data maintenance
• Dynamic data exchange
• Access control by password protection
• Allows remote programming of control logic
• Customized detailed data acquisition screen
• Alarm log generation based on defined limits
• Trending of historical data – the data logging frequency is user selectable

• All flow data for different consumers are available centrally at one location.
• Eliminates discrepancies in flow data among the supplier and the consumer.
• Invoicing becomes easier with clarity of data.
• Exceptional events recorded indicate need of maintenance of the system.
• As the software talks to several flow computers, customer has more options in case of augmentation / upgradation of pipeline network.

Liquid & Gas Flow Monitoring Business Driver

The pipeline flow measurement business has assumed a more important role in overall pipeline operation scene due to price & performance pressure on global oil & gas companies. The spiraling price of crude and gas forced the petroleum companies to look for more accurate measurement techniques, better knowledge about properties of fluids handled and wider application of electronic & software to accomplish superior data management and data integrity. The people who are responsible for flow measurement have a challenge to respond to improve their efficiency and profitability.

To take care of all these concerns, the pipeline operation managers are employing state of the art flow computers, volume correctors, and advanced SCADA software to manage and control within acceptable tolerance.

There are several operational challenges that need to be resolved to provide an economical and effective solution. Some of the challenges can be broadly categorized as follows:

Most prevalent with cross country pipelines, normal modes of communications such as cellular networks, telephones and cable medium are not available. In such cases, only satellite based communication is possible.

Many locations do not have auxiliary power that is required for powering the system. Solar based operations on a continuous basis are also not possible in some situations due to non-availability of sunlight on a continuous basis. A hybrid solution based on battery backup and solar panels is therefore employed in such situations.

Oil and Gas companies use flow computers from several manufacturers that do not talk the same language. The system therefore needs to be able to support various protocols and in some cases have multi-protocol support within the same unit.

CIMCON offered SCANET software and GSM/GPRS/Satellite communication enabled Remote Terminal Units with multi-protocol support to ensure seamless data integration for monitoring and metering.

Historical trending and multiple spreadsheet based reports improve the data analysis process.

• Multiple protocol support to communicate with a variety of flow computers.
• Very low power consumption
• Solar power option
• Log & store data with time stamping, and retain it even in case of power failure,
• Logic building using flowchart based programming
• Ability to generate real-time notifications via email and/or text messaging using SMS.
• Local / Remote programming of the configuration parameters,
• Enabling and disabling of alarms on cell phones by system verified & authenticated users,

• Fully web based
• Scalable to respond to growing network need
• High Availability
• Easy data maintenance
• Dynamic data exchange
• Access control by password protection
• Allows remote programming of control logic
• Customized detailed data acquisition screen
• Alarm log generation based on defined limits
• Trending of historical data – the data logging frequency is user selectable

• All flow data for different consumers are available centrally at one location.
• Eliminates discrepancies in flow data among the supplier and the consumer.
• Invoicing becomes easier with clarity of data.
• Exceptional events recorded indicate need of maintenance of the system.
• As the software talks to several flow computers, customer has more options in case of augmentation / upgradation of pipeline network.