New FLEXIM Oil & Gas Division

At its 20th anniversary FLEXIM looks back at an impressive history: The company has grown from humble beginnings to a network of subsidiaries spanning the globe. And so has its core business: of engineering and manufacturing clamp-on ultrasonic flow meters (USFM): It grew from a single portable meter model into a comprehensive offering of liquid- and gas flow meters.

Industry experts estimate growth rates for USFM to be in the 10% range, mainly driven by oil and gas applications. FLEXIM's believes this number to be too low.. It does not consider all those applications where USFM should be used but are currently not. FLEXIM modern USFM technology has opened applications which were either thought technically impossible to do or were considered not accurate enough. These limitations need re-thinking.

The Oil & Gas Industry

The hydrocarbon industry is also changing. In spite of efforts in renewable and nuclear energy the fossil fuel portion of the world's energy supply is predicted to hold steady over the next 20 years. That implies growing expenditures in all areas of the oil & gas sectors:. Several trends are recognizable:: LNG production will increase. Crude oil will be more of the sour heavy kind. This - combined with a falling demand for residual fuel oils - will increase the demand for upgrading. Environmental regulations will force refineries to produce cleaner fuels and become more complex by adding feed pre- and product post-treating processes. Increased expenses combined with higher oil prices could shrink refinery margins.

Poorer-quality energy supplies, more complex refining processes and a lack of a sufficiently skilled engineering and labor pool all point to the need for higher efficiency, less maintenance and more up-time. And efficiency of course starts with proper measuring procedures.

While the operating environment of the hydrocarbon industry is changing its old operating ways have been stagnant for some time. With regard to flow measurement high maintenance DP devices (orifice plates, wedges, venturis) or even vortex shedding meters are still the norm. FLEXIM believes this should and can change.

The perfect match: FLEXIM Oil & Gas Division

The hydrocarbon processing industry has special demands: high temperatures, high safety requirements, aggressive fluids to name a few. FLEXIM has met these demands in many successful installations and in May 2009 decided it was time to serve the industry in a more focused approach by forming a global Oil & Gas Division.

This new division is run by Division Manager Claus Huebel, located in FLEXIM's California office. There are supporting offices in Houston TX, New York, Germany, Holland, Dubai, Singapore and Shanghai. The purpose of this Division is to better serve the needs of the hydrocarbon industry. This is done by leveraging many years of experiences and a wide acceptance by some of the world's major oil & gas companies.

Some examples of FLEXIM's clamp-on meters include these applications: crude oil delivery, hot and viscous coker / FCC / visbreaker feed operations, hydrogen gas production, HF or H2S04 in alkylation , desalting, de-asphalting, water injection and recovery, pipeline leak detection, methane and nitrogen gas, multi product liquid interface detection, pipeline batching processes, gas storage in/out flow, custody transfer check metering, line balancing, liquid quality / concentration monitoring. FLEXIM meters feature actual to standard volume compensation (API and AGA tables) with temperature and pressure inputs, Reynold's number compensation, and more.

The general advantages of USFM technology - such as no process interruption during installation, non contact measurement, no pressure loss etc are commonly known. What is not commonly known are some of the very special and thought of "impossible" applications FLEXIM meters perform in. One example may illustrate this:

A Canadian upgrader operation used to measure coker feed with vortex and orifice meters. The vortex shedders frequently broke by impact with solid matter carried in the medium.. The DP meter pressure impact lines plugged up during the summer months and froze in the winter. Maintenance was high, up-time was affected, the accuracy was unreliable and replacement costs high. The problems were solved with FLEXIM high temperature clamp-on USFM's. Maintenance is almost nil, accuracy is high, and with its non-intrusive design potential safety hazards are eliminated.

Successful and convincing installations such as these have landed FLEXIM on the approval lists of major companies involved in the oil & gas business. It is also obvious that FLEXIM meters have an immediate impact on a company's bottom line.

So why are USFM's not yet the preferred standard for flow measurement in the industry? We at FLEXIM believe that the initial answer lies in the adage that old habits are slow to die. But FLEXIM's new Oil & Gas Division wants to address this question in more detail. If you are involved in the oil & gas business and you would like to have FLEXIM technicians demonstrate our capabilities please contact us. It will help your company's bottom line.

New Refinery Brochure (PDF)