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A recent Wet Gas test programme involved metering equipment that was taken out of subsea operation for assessment and upgrading before being re-deployed. This work highlights the role NEL can play in supporting this type of life-extension project. It also supports the trend that more operators are looking at equipment repair and refurbishment as an alternative to replacement.
“We have undertaken several of these types of test projects in the last few months,” says Zak Latif, who is NEL’s Section Leader for Wet Gas. “However, it is unusual for us to see wet gas meters that have been previously deployed subsea. We believe that this is a reflection of the operators’ requirements to reduce capex costs by maintaining subsea devices in robust working order over a longer time period.”
The most recent project involved the testing of a wet gas flow meter that had been deployed subsea for over a decade. The equipment was extracted from the seabed to update key sensors. Following refurbishment, the meter was delivered to NEL for verification that it was metering flows in accordance with the specification. The work was carried out for a leading meter manufacturer on behalf of a major Oil and Gas operator.
“We delivered the equivalent of a Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) to validate the newly refurbished technology, testing it over a range of flows and conditions,” explains Zak. “The equipment was installed in our Wet Gas flow facility in East Kilbride and the work involved using a typical test matrix to validate the meter’s performance.”
The testing resulted in a report being produced for the meter manufacturer which subsequently facilitated the re-deployment of the metering system.
