Enterprise-level Volume & Mass Balancing

Oil and gas companies are required to precisely track the quantity of product in their pipelines on a monthly basis, ensuring that all system inputs and outputs are accurately reconciled. This has traditionally been a challenging and labor-intensive task, occupying the measurement team for the first part of each month.

Equate™ streamlines the system balancing process, making all the required information readily available to simplify the end-of-month reporting.

System balancing is integrated directly with the flow computer data, providing a much better insight into the state of the measurement and allowing system balances to be based on higher resolution custody transfer data rather than just a single total taken from the batch report.

Real-time secondly data from receipt and delivery meters can be combined with tank volumes and line fill to give an accurate picture of the system balance that tracks all product movements across the system.

Modifications to batches are executed on an individual basis and batch totals are recalculated automatically. A mismeasurement report documents the impact of every change on the measurement totals. This report includes complete revision control to ensure full traceability back to the flow computer.

At the end of each month, Equate™ generates a suite of high-quality PDF reports summarising the state of the system balance, which can automatically be distributed to interested parties.

Combining Equate™ with other applications in the Metrology suite provides a complete picture of the quality of the overall state of measurement for all measurement stations, tracking the state of the proves, calibrations and uncertainty for all equipment on the station.

Equate™ at a glance...

  • Real-time system balancing
  • Streamlined end of month reporting
  • Missing data
  • Mismeasurements

Equate™ is part of the Metrology™ suite of integrated products

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Traceability is fundamental to Equate™. Every adjustment is meticulously documented and revision-controlled. A detailed mismeasurement report is generated for every batch modification, outlining the specific change, the reasons behind it, and the resulting impact on net and mass totals. Equate™ highlights which meters have generated the most mismeasurements and presents this information on a dashboard for easy monitoring.

It is possible to make multiple adjustments to a batch, e.g. a temperature adjustment due to an equipment failure could be followed by a change in meter factor. Each modification is recorded individually against a new revision, and the batch totals are recalculated accordingly. If the changes span an extended period, they could affect multiple batches. Equate™ creates a mismeasurement report automatically for each batch and regenerates all new batch report totals accordingly.

All revisions to the flow computer data are retained for reference and marked alongside the original data. Auditors can download any revision of batch data to validate calculations.

    Equate™ Features

  • Simple Setup

    System balances can be configured simply by dragging and dropping tanks, line fill, receipt and delivery meters from multiple RTUs into the required arrangement. 

  • Dashboard

    Get an up-to-date view of system status on the real-time dashboard, which also provides a communications summary and flags up offline RTUs and missing batches.

  • System Balance Reports

    Equate™ features a comprehensive list of system balance reports, displaying the current state of batches and tank levels.

  • Missing Data

    One of the most important aspects of a system balance is ensuring that all data collected from the flow computer is accounted for. Equate™ flags potential outages and allows missing batches to be reconstituted from historical flow computer data.

  • Product Balance

    The system balance reports also feature a complete breakdown of all product movements across the system, highlighting transfers and adjustments as they occur. Equate™ generates a detailed inventory of the products at the end of each month.

  • Edit Batch

    Flow computers are the custody transfer points on the network but are still open for misconfiguration or instrumentation failure. Using Equate™, any batch can be edited to allow corrections to be made and each change is recorded in the logbook and as a mismeasurement.

  • Tanks / Line Fill

    Tank data and Line Fill can be automatically captured from SCADA or entered manually. Equate™ tracks all volume changes, transfers, adjustments and product changes.

  • Product Calculations

    Equate™ includes a comprehensive library of product calculations. These verified calculations are applied whenever a batch is edited to update totals accurately.

  • Manual Entry

    Data from third parties can be manually entered and integrated with first-party data obtained directly from the flow computer.

  • Reopen Month

    Closed months can be reopened and updated as needed. Automated revision control preserves previous versions of the reports for auditing and record-keeping purposes.

  • Enterprise Access

    Users on the Enterprise network can easily access Equate™ data without requiring access to the lower-level SCADA systems or flow computers.