South American Success for UK Flowmeter Specialists

Leading manufacturer and supplier of custom flow meters Litre Meter (UK) has shipped over 100 chemical injection flow meters to Flutrol Com.e Controle de Fluidos Ltda in Brazil. The meters are for use on a new
floating production unit (FPU) to be located in the Campos Basin, off the coast of Brazil.

Owned by Petrobras, the Brazilian national oil company, the new FPU, designated P56, will be one of the largest offshore facilities in Brazil to extract oil and gas at a water depth of approximately 2,000 meters.
It is expected to produce approximately 180,000 barrels of oil per day, or 10 per cent of the total national production, plus six million standard cubic meters per day of associated gas.

The P56 facility will operate off the Rio de Janeiro state coast in the Marlim Sul field of the Campos Basin. The latest shipment follows previous contracts to supply flow meters for the P51 FPU and to a
chemical injection skid builder in Houston USA for similar equipment for the P52 and P54 platforms.

The meters are all of Litre Meters range of VFF positive displacement meters adapted to suit the Petrobras specification including head mounted instrumentation in an EExd enclosure certified by Inmetro
and providing a 4-20mA output signal with HART protocol communication. The meters have been designed and manufactured by Litre Meter for the last 30 years and are ideally suited to the oil and gas market as they
are tolerant of both particulate and pulsating flows.

Litre Meter built on its initial success in winning the contract against stiff international competition. Commenting on the contract win Charles Wemyss, Litre Meter owner and engineering director, attributed
the company’s success to the fundamental simplicity of the solution.

He said: "We have been able to offer a single product family to provide measurement of the different injection chemicals from hydrate and wax inhibitors to anti-biofouling - ensuring oil is pumped in good
condition - the units all use a common ’top box’ housed in an EExd explosion-proof enclosure compliant with US and Brazilian regulations with rate and total display as well as HART protocol.

"The VFF rotary piston flowmeter is designed for very low flow chemical dosing. Typical applications include methanol, scale inhibitor, corrosion inhibitor, de-emulsifier, O2 scavenger and wax inhibitor.
The positive displacement type flowmeter is preferred to the turbine principle as it enables the meter both to measure high & low viscosity fluids and to track pulsations in the line."

The P-56 semi-submersible platform today is a copy of the P-51, the first semi-submersible-type platform built entirely in Brazil.

The same companies involved with the P-51 were contracted to work on the P-56, since one project is a copy of the other. Using this format has meant that Petrobras will be able to predict production at Marlim
Sul and recover lost production caused by delays in the P-55 and P-57 projects.

Because this is a repeat order of custom flow meters already supplied it has meant that Petrobras has benefited from shorter deadlines and lower project costs.

Positioned at depths of 1,700 meters about 124 km off the coast the P56 will be capable of processing and treating 170,000 barrels of liquids, 100,000 barrels of 16º API oil, six million cubic meters of natural gas,
and of injecting some 280,000 barrels of water in the reservoir. It will operate connected to 22 wells, 11 of which oil and gas producers and 11 used to inject water.

This production unit, one of the largest of its kind in the world, is expected to begin commercial operations in late 2010