Patent ID: 8606531

Claim:
A method for spot check analysis or spot sampling of a multiphase mixture flowing in a pipeline, comprising: using a sampling probe to collect a sample of the multiphase mixture under isokinetic conditions, wherein the multiphase mixture comprises a mixture of a liquid phase and a gas phase and the liquid phase comprises at least one of a water phase and an oil/condensate phase, and wherein the sampling probe comprises a probe opening having an internal diameter for collecting the sample of the multiphase mixture; flowing the collected sample through a conduit, wherein the conduit is configured to provide that capillary effects dominate flow of the collected sample through the conduit, and wherein the capillary effects produce a phase separated slug flow through the conduit comprising a separated flow of the gas phase, the water phase and the oil/condensate phase in the conduit; reducing a velocity of the flow of the sample flowing in the conduit; detecting a presence of the gas, water or oil/condensate phases in the phase separated slug flow at a first phase detection location along the conduit using a first phase detector; detecting a presence of one of the of the gas, water or oil/condensate phases in the phase separated slug flow at a second phase detection location along the conduit using a second phase detector; and cross-correlating the detected phases at the first and the second locations to determine a phase fraction of the gas, water or oil/condensate phases in the multiphase mixture using a processor.