This paper will describe a new and unique instrument to accurately determine the water-cut of an oil-water emulsion. The basic principle of the measurement is based on a novel technique, commonly called oscillator load-pull, which detects the microwave characteristic of the emulsion. This measurement technique will be described simply and concisely. The design and development of the measurement pipe section and the necessary microwave oscillator source and control electronics will be discussed. Laboratory calibration data for the microwave water-cut meter will be presented. Installation of the instrument at a presented. Installation of the instrument at a production facility will be described and field test production facility will be described and field test results will be presented. Performance of the microwave water-cut meter will be compared to other water-in-crude determination methods including distillation and centrifugal separation. Introduction The measurement of water content in crude oil is an important and widely encountered practice in all aspects of oil industry operations — crude oil production, processing, transportation, and refining. production, processing, transportation, and refining. The water-cut measurement is used to help determine production rates, custody transfer, and pipeline oil production rates, custody transfer, and pipeline oil quality control. Also, the separation efficiency of production operations may be optimized by monitoring production operations may be optimized by monitoring water-cut at various points throughout the processing facility. There are three separate categories of water-cut measurement in the oil industry — low water-cut (0–3% range), high water-cut (0–100%), and produced water quality (ppm of oil in water). The measurement technique developed in this project is capable of performing all three categories of measurement, but performing all three categories of measurement, but this paper will be focusing on the design and development of the meter for the low water-cut range. At Prudhoe Bay, ARCO Alaska, Inc. has a strict requirement of water-cut prior to sending the oil to the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. The pipeline specification for the water content in the crude is 0.35% maximum to prevent hydrate and corrosion problems. This strict requirement creates the need for problems. This strict requirement creates the need for the producer to find the most reliable and accurate method to continuously monitor the water-cut during the separation process before sending the "dry" crude oil to the pipeline. The present practices used for water-cut measurement in the oil industry can be divided into two classes: on-line continuous monitoring; and laboratory test methods. Several manufacturing companies offer a commercial device to measure the water-cut on line. The laboratory test methods include centrifugal separation, Dean-Stark distillation, and Karl-Fischer titration. Several commercial water-cut measurement units have been used to monitor water-cut at Prudhoe Bay, but none has proved to be satisfactory to the operation. These meters are either unstable or lack the required measurement resolution. The laboratory methods are used periodically to check the water-cut, but their results are invariably questioned due to each one's inherent sampling error. Another disadvantage of most laboratory methods is that they are too slow to respond to the occasional water spike situation. By the time the result comes back from the laboratory, the water slug may be downstream of the separation facility. Also, the laboratory methods do not measure the water-cut of all the fluids and there may be long time intervals between sample gatherings. For the case of custody transfer, the industry is primarily using either the distillation or centrifuge primarily using either the distillation or centrifuge method. These methods usually include the use of a composite sampler which draws a small portion of liquid into a "jug" whenever a fixed amount of oil passes by. The water-cut of the "jug" sample is then passes by. The water-cut of the "jug" sample is then determined by one of the laboratory methods. P. 775
The ability to measure both water and oil continuous phases of a production stream from 0% to 100% water cut has been pursued by a multitude of companies for many years with marginal success in transferring the technology to practical use.A field worthy technology developed for accurately determining the full range of water-in-oil (0-100% water cut) for production and well testing will be covered. Information about the fluid phase, oil or water continuous, is determined and given in real time. The novel technique used is called oscillator load pull, which detects the permittivity of the fluids. Salinity, temperature, entrained gas, and emulsion type effects will be discussed showing their effects on phase inversion and measurement parameters. Data from installed instruments on location in Alaska and the lower 48 states will be shown. Comparisons to shake-outs and well test logs will be compared. Descriptions of how the real time information of the phase of the fluids has been used to observe and affect well management will be presented.
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