MARKET DEVELOPMENTS

Lawton Smith (1994, cf. Kinghorn 1988) gave some overall figures (cf. Chapter 20) for the flow measurement industry worldwide, which, with likely growth, suggest that by the year 2000 it could be in excess of US $1 billion.

With this growing market in mind, we look at the new challenges that face the flowmeter engineer, the current and future devices that may provide solutions, the implications of information technology, and new production methods. The chapter concludes with some suggestions for the way ahead, after a brief review of comments that I made on future developments in an earlier book (Baker 1988/9).

EXISTING AND NEW FLOW MEASUREMENT CHALLENGES

Oil Exploration and Processing

The oil industry, dealing as it does with high value products, is likely to continue to ask for more accurate meters capable of operating in adverse conditions, in multiphase flow, and in subsea installations.

Corneliussen (1991) of the Amoco Norway Oil Company described field experience with Hod metering, which was the first small unmanned production platform in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea and started production in September 1990. Gas and liquid were transported in a three-phase pipeline 13 km to another platform from which Hod was operated. He described problems that appeared to have stemmed from trapped air and gas in the pipeline and from a highly acidic well that eventually caused the destruction of some of the meters. This is one example of the increasingly difficult environment in which North Sea instrumentation must work.