Patent ID: 8555708

Claim:
A system for sampling a liquid phase of a multiphase mixture containing one or more hydrocarbons flowing in a pipeline configured for transporting the one or more hydrocarbons, comprising: an expansion conduit configured for coupling with the pipeline for transporting the one or more hydrocarbons, the expansion conduit comprising a first end, a second end, an inner surface, an inner volume defined by the inner surface and the first and the second end, a first opening in the first end and a second opening in the second end, wherein: the first end of the expansion conduit is configured to couple with a first section of the pipeline to provide for flow of the multiphase mixture out of the pipeline through the first opening in the expansion conduit into the inner volume of the expansion conduit; the second opening is configured to couple with a second section of the pipeline to provide an outlet for the multiphase mixture to flow out of the inner volume into the pipeline; a first cross-sectional size of a section of the first section of the pipeline is smaller than a second cross-sectional size of the inner volume; and the expansion conduit is configured in use to be integrated with a vertical section of the pipeline and provide for unobstructed vertical flow of the multiphase mixture through the expansion conduit; a fluid phase collector coupled with the inner surface and configured to provide that a portion of the fluid phase of the multiphase mixture deposited on the inner surface when the multiphase mixture flows through the expansion conduit travels down the inner surface under gravity and is collected in the fluid phase collector; and a sampling conduit in fluid communication with the fluid phase collector and configured to flow the portion of the fluid phase collected in the fluid phase collector out of the fluid phase collector through the sampling conduit, wherein the flow of the portion of the fluid phase through the sampling conduit is produced in use by a hydrostatic head of the fluid phase collected in the fluid phase collector.