page_title: Allocation (oil and gas)
section_title: Flow meters
hierarchical_section_title: Allocation (oil and gas) / Allocation practices and methods / Measurements / Flow meters
caption_attribution_description: English: 8 inch V-Cone Flowmeter 3D image showing with ANSI 300# Raised Face Weld Neck Flanges
context_page_description: In the petroleum industry, allocation refers to practices of breaking down measures of quantities of extracted hydrocarbons across various contributing sources. Allocation aids the attribution of ownerships of hydrocarbons as each contributing element to a commingled flow or to a storage of petroleum may have a unique ownership. Contributing sources in this context are typically producing petroleum wells delivering flows of petroleum or flows of natural gas to a commingled flow or storage.
  The terms hydrocarbon accounting and allocation are sometimes used interchangeably. Hydrocarbon accounting has a wider scope, taking advantages of allocation results, it is the petroleum management process by which ownership of extracted hydrocarbons is determined and tracked from a point of sale or discharge back to the point of extraction. In this way, hydrocarbon accounting also covers inventory control, material balance, and practices to trace ownership of hydrocarbons being transported in a transportation system, e.g. through pipelines to customers distant from the production plant.
context_section_description: Flow meters for the measurements in the oil and gas upstream industry are chosen based on type of measurement, performance and accuracy requirements, and the type of medium to be measured. Available meters in the market are characterized by properties such as accuracy, operational rangebility: flowrate, viscosity, velocity, pressure and temperature conditions, durability and demand with respect to calibration and monitoring, the ability to withstand contaminants, injected chemicals, salty and acidic environment. For the application of custody transfer measurements of fluid hydrocarbons, positive displacement meters and turbine meters have been preferred.  For gas metering, gas orifice meters and ultrasonic flow meters are most common. Coriolis meters are in use for liquid measurements, but can also take gas measurement applications.
  For the application of allocation measurements, multiphase flow meters have been adopted, especially for subsea production systems. These equipments are able to deduce the proportion and flow rate of each fluid phase.
caption: V-Cone Flow meter with raised face weld neck flanges
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