IPTC-19590-Abstract

Extending Salinity Operating Range and Water Detection Lower Limit of

Multiphase Flowmeters

Massimiliano Fiore, Cheng-Gang Xie, and Guillaume Jolivet, Schlumberger

Copyright 2020, International Petroleum Technology Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the International Petroleum Technology Conference held in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, 13 – 15 January 2020.

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Abstract
With 20 years of operations, multiphase flowmeters (MPFMs) using a combination of venturi and multi-
energy gamma-ray absorption have gained acceptance in the oil and gas industry by demonstrating
reliable measurement and operational robustness. Nonetheless, some challenging operating scenarios are
encountered such as significant water salinity changes in multiphase and wet-gas flows and rapid detection
of small water quantities during production.
Although MPFMs are not affected by small water salinity changes, inaccurate flow rates can be calculated
when water salinity significantly departs from the initial properties. To maintain measurement metrology as
per specifications, the water-point should be manually modified to track variations; however, this operation
is time consuming and may incur nonproductive time. The salinity change measured by a newly developed
sensor can be provided seamlessly to MPFMs to automatically update the water point calibration, thus
ensuring good flow rate measurement performance over a wider water salinity range. Extensive validations
at several flow loop facilities and field tests, including frac flowback operations, demonstrate the robustness
of the method in terms of hardware reliability and the delivery of high-quality data when used with MPFMs
with digital connectivity, which opens the way to unmanned production monitoring operations. Interpreting
multiphase mixture's dielectric constant and electrical conductivity simultaneously measured by the new
microwave water salinity sensor at a high data acquisition rate shows that water salinity can be tracked
online in the presence of oil, gas, and sand, and small water quantities down to 50 ppm (part-per-million)
water volume fraction (WVF), from the typical ~1000-ppm WVF for the MPFM, can be detected rapidly
in multiphase and wet-gas flows.
This paper describes the working principles of the new sensor that enable additional capabilities to
maintain accurate water-liquid ratio (WLR) measurement in situations where significant water salinity
changes occur and to provide a rapid, much lower WVF detection level. Successful cases demonstrating an
accurate real-time salinity monitoring in flow loop tests and in field operations are also presented.
2 IPTC-19590-Abstract

Introduction
Multiphase flowmeters (MPFMs) have been receiving an increasing interest since the first commercial
meters appeared in early 1990s. The smaller footprint and lower cost for topside applications when compared
with test separators were the main drivers for the development and deployment of MPFMs (Falcone et al.
2001). Today the covered range of applications is much broader, from subsea to surface wellheads, including
exploration and appraisal to production, to fiscal allocation of oil and gas fields (Theuveny et al. 2002;
Pinguet et al. 2014b). MPFMs have proven to be reliable and even considered as reference against test
separators (Al-Hammadi et al. 2012).
Among the wide range of different technologies adopted for MPFMs (Falcone et al. 2001; Pinguet, 2010;
Hansen et al. 2019), the combination of a venturi tube for total flow rate and gamma ray absorption for
phase fractions of oil, water and gas has proven to be one of the most reliable in the field of multiphase
flow metering, and MPFMs with this technology have been used in operations for more than 20 years.
Recent advancements in the acquisition and interpretation of the measured signals have further improved
metrological performances, in particular in the multi-energy gamma-ray absorption and interpretation of
the full energy spectrum emitted by a chemical radioactive source (Chazal et al. 2014). A key benefit of
this phase fraction measurement technique is that the gamma-ray/matter interaction phenomena occur at the
atomic level, thus being independent of challenging fluid distributions at the molecular level, such as oil-
water inversion region, emulsions or foaming flows.
The general conviction is that any change in water salinity can greatly affect the accuracy of the phase
fraction measurement based on multi-energy gamma-ray absorption (Falcone et al. 2001; Hansen et al.
2019). It was demonstrated that, depending on the natural emissions of the selected radionuclide, a change
of salinity up to 5% in mass may impact the water liquid ratio (WLR) by less than 2% for oil continuous
flows (Pinguet et al. 2014a, 2014b). For water continuous flows and/or larger salinity changes, the water
point should be manually modified to avoid inaccurate determination of flow rates. However, this operation
is usually time consuming and may be complex to perform in the case of flowmeters in remote locations
and unmanned operations. The salinity tracking may therefore become a need for specific watery wells
to maintain the WLR measurement and flow rate performance over time (Pinguet et al. 2016). A typical
example is represented by the rapid change of salinity of the produced water during the flowback period of
unconventional oil wells, followed by a period of smaller but constantly evolving salinity change (Theuveny
et al. 2019). Salinity tracking can be also beneficial for applications where tuning the salinity of injected
water has the potential of enhancing oil recovery (Yousef et al. 2010).
Extensive experimental testing has demonstrated that microwave sensors, such as those based on an open
coaxial probe operating in the GHz-range, are able to track changes in water salinity by simultaneously
measuring the mixture permittivity and mixture conductivity of oil-gas-water multiphase flows (Xie et al.
2004; Pinguet et al. 2016). Moreover, the same sensor can make rapid detection of early-water production by
performing mixture-permittivity data processing. Detecting the first droplets of water in high gas-volume-
fraction (GVF) wet gas conditions is extremely important in subsea flow-assurance applications, where
hydrate-inhibitor injection is critical to prevent hydrates formation and plugging the main production line,
thus to maintain the entire production (Pinguet et al. 2014a, 2014b; Vielliard et al. 2019). The detection
of unexpected water production at a water volume fraction (WVF) value much lower than ~1000 ppm
from MPFMs is also critical for ensuring prompt action to prevent accelerated corrosion damage in surface
pipelines and processing plants with limitations in treating produced water with dissolved H2S (Sabry et
al. 2014; Fiore et al. 2019).
By focusing on surface MPFM applications, the principles of water salinity tracking and first-water
detection with a nonintrusive microwave sensor and the integration into a commercial water salinity sensor
system, used either as standalone product or fully connected to an MPFM, are described. The results
of extensive laboratory flow loop tests, presented in this paper, demonstrate the accuracy of the real-
IPTC-19590-Abstract 3

time salinity measurement by the new sensor and its capability of enabling automatic water point update
when connected to a multi-energy gamma-ray absorption-based MPFM. Finally, accurate online salinity
measurements during unmanned frac flowback field operations are presented, thus showing the robustness
and reliability of the water salinity sensor.

Principles of Water Salinity Tracking and Water Detection in Multiphase

Flows
The nonintrusive microwave open-ended coaxial sensor is based on the measurement of the amplitude
attenuation and phase shift of the reflected wave relative to those of an incident wave, to infer the
conductivity and permittivity of a multiphase mixture in direct contact with the sensor aperture (Fig. 1).
The incident microwave interacts with the multiphase flow with a depth of investigation of few millimeters,
thus making this measurement a local one. The portion of the signal not absorbed by the flow is reflected,
depending on electromagnetic properties of the mixture (a water-rich mixture would have more absorption
than an oil-rich one). In the presence of free ions, such as dissolved salts in water, the complex permittivity
of water can be described as a Debye relaxation process as follows (Stogryn 1971):

where εw and ε∞ are the static-limit and the high-frequency-limit permittivity of water, respectively; ω is the
angular wave frequency; τ is the dielectric relaxation time and ε0 is the permittivity of free space (= 8.854
· 10-12 F/m). At the chosen microwave frequency, the real part ε′ of the complex permittivity is dominated
by the static-limit permittivity, whereas the imaginary part ε″ is dominated by the static-limit electrical
conductivity σ. Thanks to the high contrast of the permittivity of water (static value εw ≃ [80; 20], depending
on salinity and temperature) relative to that of the hydrocarbons (εo ≃ [2; 2.5], εg ≃ 1), the water detection
algorithm can be based on the processing of the measured mixture permittivity. The algorithm for the salinity
calculation of a water-rich multiphase flow can consider the high contrasts of both mixture permittivity and
mixture conductivity that would be dominated by the values of the water phase (σw ≃ [0; 80] S/m, depending
on salinity and temperature; and hydrocarbons σo ≃ 0 S/m, σg ≃ 0 S/m).

Figure 1—Schematic of the microwave open-coaxial sensor and signal interpretation.

4 IPTC-19590-Abstract

Fig. 2 shows the patented microwave open-coaxial sensor, which is engineered to withstand a pressure
of 5000 psi and a temperature range of -40 to 121 °C and be H2S-resistant. The pressure seal, also acting
as electrical insulator between the inner and outer conductors, is made of an appropriate glass or ceramic.
A secondary pressure barrier is provided by a feedthrough for use with a microwave coaxial cable, also
capable of withstanding 5000 psi with a similar pressure seal, thus dramatically increasing the safety of the
use of the microwave open-coaxial water salinity sensor (Xie et al., 2017).

Figure 2—Microwave open-coaxial sensor.

The microwave open-coaxial sensor is connected to a radio frequency (RF) measurement electronics by a
microwave cable via the feedthrough connector shown in Fig. 2. The electronics generates the incident wave
and receives the reflected wave, which represents the input of the coaxial reflection probe interpretation
model. The measured complex reflection coefficient of the mixture, Γm, which is a ratio of the reflected to the
incident signals (after an appropriate correction), as well as a measure of the mismatch between the electrical
impedance of the probe and that of the mixture within the probe sensing volume, is used to calculate the
complex permittivity of the multiphase flow mixture ε* and the mixture permittivity εm and conductivity σm.
The mixture permittivity is used for the first-water detection, whereas both permittivity and conductivity are
used for calculating the water salinity. The water salinity model utilizes the constant ratio between the water-
rich mixture conductivity and permittivity σm/εm), for any given salinity and fluid temperature (Xie et al.
2004). When plotted in a σm vs εm graph as shown in Fig. 3, the distribution of the properly filtered real-time
measurement points can be fitted by a line with its slope depending on the water salinity at a given mixture
temperature. The line slope is nearly independent of the hydrocarbon content in the locally water-rich flow
mixture (i.e., independent of WLR and GVF): the variation in hydrocarbon content is solely affecting the
positioning of the measured points along the line with a constant water salinity. Depending on the salt
species dissolved in the water, an interpretation model is used to obtain the salinity from the measured fluid
temperature and the conductivity/permittivity ratio. Fig. 4 summarizes the RF signals interpretation model
that leads to the first-water detection and the water salinity determination.
IPTC-19590-Abstract 5

Figure 3—Mixture conductivity vs permittivity domain (at 20 °C) and water salinity determination.

Figure 4—Interpretation model of the RF signals from the salinity probe and output.

An updated interpretation model can be generated to include hydrate inhibitors such as monoethylene
glycol (MEG), which is fully miscible in water and commonly used for subsea flow assurance. By using the
same microwave open-coaxial sensor, it has been shown that for solutions of water and MEG, their mixture
conductivity/permittivity ratio varies in a predictable manner with the MEG-in-water concentrations and
temperature. The online measurement of MEG concentration in produced water allows an operator to
optimize the injection rate of the costly hydrate inhibitor (Vielliard et al. 2019).
Due to the shallow (a few millimeters) depth of investigation of the microwave sensor, the local
measurement and detection of water properties (such as the salinity and presence of water) are preferably
performed in a water-rich zone, representative of the true flow mixture. Observations at very high GVF
flows demonstrate that the lower area of a horizontal inlet blind tee (often used with a vertically installed
MPFM) tends to be liquid-rich and the flow turbulence prevents liquid stagnation (Fig. 5). Having the open-
coaxial probe facing the incoming flow and set in an appropriate location in a blind tee is the most suitable
configuration to ensure a representative salinity measurement and an early water detection (Pinguet et al.
2016).
6 IPTC-19590-Abstract

Figure 5—Example of water-gas distribution in a horizontal inlet blind tee at GVF = 99.5%.

As part of a commercial water salinity sensor system shown in Fig. 6, the microwave open-coaxial
probe is installed in a pressure-retaining end-flange of a horizontal blind tee. The lower position of the
measurement probe, in direct contact with the multiphase flow, is optimized to cater for surface operation
with production of solids. The readings from the reference probe, which is at ambient pressure and at the
similar process flow temperature to the measurement probe, are used to compensate for the effects of aging
and ambient temperature gradients on the RF cables. The RF electronics, including a processor for the
microwave probe signal interpretation, is installed in a dedicated Ex zone-1 enclosure. The water salinity
sensor can be used either as a standalone product or connected to a multi-energy gamma-ray absorption-
based MPFM for an automatic water point adjustment by means of the real-time salinity measurement (Xie
et al. 2004); this topic is described in the next section.

Figure 6—Standalone water salinity sensor product with microwave probe

connected to a blind tee end-flange with an appropriately chosen depth.

Phase fraction measurement through gamma rays and salinity correction

As explained in detail by Chazal et al. 2014, the phase fraction measurement in venturi/gamma-ray
absorption MPFMs is based on the attenuation of photons with at least two different energies after interaction
with the water-oil-gas multiphase flow. The attenuation of photons by a medium obeys the Beer-Lambert law
IPTC-19590-Abstract 7

where n and n0 are the number of photons transmitted per second after interaction and incident to the
medium, respectively; λ is the linear attenuation coefficient, which depends on the incident photon energy
and the medium, and defined as the probability for the photons to be adsorbed or scattered; d is the medium
thickness, equivalent to the photon-medium interaction distance.
In the case of MPFMs with phase fraction measurement based on gamma ray absorption, at least two
photon energies must be used and properly selected to have enough contrast between λw, λo and λg, linear
attenuation coefficients of the water, oil and gas, respectively, expected to be produced by the monitored
well. Thanks to the linear attenuation coefficient linearity with the mixture composition, the mixture linear
attenuation coefficient reads λm = αw λw + αo λo + αg λg, where α represents the fraction of the phases in the
mixture. Knowing that the pipe is always filled by a water-oil-gas mixture, i.e. ∑i=w,o,g αi = 1, the unknown
phase fractions are determined by solving the following system of linear equations:

where the subscripts LE and HE denote the low- and high photon energies, properly selected to guarantee
that the above equations are linearly independent.
Prior to MPFM normal operations of real-time phase-fraction measurement, the linear attenuation
coefficients of the water, oil and gas produced by the monitored well need to be measured. This is usually
achieved by performing in-situ gamma-ray absorption measurements by using static monophasic samples
of the produced fluids. By plotting the obtained initial fluids-calibration measurements on a λLE vs λHE graph,
the three points corresponding to the three individual phases can be connected to create a triangle, typically
called attenuation triangle (Fig. 7). All the possible mixtures will lie within the attenuation triangle. As
shown in Fig. 7a, connecting the triangle vertices to the current operating point (mixture), three sub-triangles
are created, the areas of which are proportional to the phase fractions.
8 IPTC-19590-Abstract

Figure 7—Attenuation triangle: a) with initialized fluid properties; b) after large salinity change.

If the chemical composition of at least one of the three phases changes, its linear attenuation coefficients
change accordingly, thus leading to a new attenuation triangle; Fig. 7b depicts this scenario in the case
of increased salt concentration Δs dissolved in water (more-absorbing brine). Although the mixture phase
distribution did not change, the operating point is now at a different position, but the reference attenuation
triangle is still the initial one shown in Fig. 7a. From Fig 7b, the phase fractions will be calculated as
being different from those before the increase in salt concentration. The resulting individual-phase flow
rates provided by the MPFM will also be inaccurate. Hence, a manual modification of the new water point
is needed. However, this manual operation is time consuming and in general complex for flowmeters in
remote locations and unmanned operations. When integrated with an MPFM, the microwave water salinity
sensor measures in real-time the water salinity, which can be used for an automatic adjustment of the water
point through the measured Δs. Indeed, Δs becomes part of the gamma-ray interpretation model for the
phase fraction calculations: both water density ρw+Δs and the water mass attenuation coefficient μw+Δs are
updated accordingly, to adjust finally the water linear attenuation coefficient λw+Δs = ρw+Δs · μw+Δs. Therefore,
the MPFM accuracy is maintained, regardless of changes in water salinity.
By properly selecting the gamma-ray energies for the phase fraction calculation, in many cases the
salinity variation may only have a small effect on the MPFM accuracy, thus not compromising the expected
performance (Pinguet et al. 2014a, 2014b). By considering, for instance, two main emissions of the Ba-133
IPTC-19590-Abstract 9

radionuclide, the maximum absolute error on the WLR solely due to a salinity change Δs
= 5% in mass is less than 2%, which is still considered acceptable in the total error budget, for WLR <
55%. However, for watery wells (with high WLR) and larger salinity changes, the water point needs to be
adjusted, either manually or, most preferably, automatically through a real-time salinity monitoring.

Test results
Prototypes of the water salinity sensor were extensively tested in both controlled conditions in flow loop
facilities and field conditions. More than 300 test points were captured in three different flow loops
to demonstrate the salinity tracking and the first water detection performances. The capability of water
detection down to 50 ppm was demonstrated for the new sensor, which provides the needed flow-assurance
measurement and mitigates the risks related to a field case where early water detection and subsequent
water treatment is important to prevent plant corrosion caused by high H2S content in produced oil (Fiore
et al. 2019). Laboratory salinity measurement results in flow loop and field test conditions are presented
in this section.

Laboratory results in flow loops

Tests using flow loops represent the most reliable way to evaluate the performance of MPFMs and other
flow-sensing devices, thanks to their high-accuracy references and controlled conditions. Fig. 8 shows
prototypes of the water salinity sensor connected to different flow loops (DNV-GL in the Netherlands,
Colorado Experiment Engineering Station Inc. (CEESI) in the US and the Schlumberger Singapore Well
Testing Center (SWTC), Singapore) to demonstrate the performance in terms of water detection and salinity
tracking.

Figure 8—Water salinity sensor prototypes tested at different flow loop facilities.

Fig. 9 shows the test results from one flow loop that demonstrate the accuracy of the salinity sensor
measurement in multiphase conditions. Although not shown, the tests evaluate the entire GVF range, up to
99.5%. Two sets of measurement points are plotted versus the WLR, for the reference water salinity of 17
ppm and 37 ppm of NaCl, as indicated by the gray dotted lines. The dashed black lines define the targeted
uncertainty of ±5% compared with the reference salinity. It can be observed that, for water-continuous
flows (in this test case with WLR ≥ 50%), the water salinity is measured consistently within ±5%. For oil-
continuous or oil-to-water transition flows with 20% ≤ WLR < 50% the water salinity is under-estimated
with a large uncertainty up to ~20%. No salinity measurement may be available for some oil-continuous
10 IPTC-19590-Abstract

flows with low WLRs (5% or 10%) when small droplets of water fail to make direct contact with the tip
of the probe. It is worth noting that, in low-WLR range, a large salinity error would have small impact on
the dual-energy gamma-ray WLR measurement accuracy. These findings have also been confirmed in the
field tests.

Figure 9—Salinity measurement vs WLR in a flow loop (with GVF up to 99.5%).

As previously described, real-time water salinity tracking enables the automatic adjustment of the MPFM
water point. Fig. 10 shows the flow loop test results in terms of absolute WLR error vs the GVF for three-
phase mixtures. After initializing the MPFM with a 40-kppm NaCl brine, the water salinity was reduced
to 10-ppm, with Δs = -30 kppm absolute or a large -75% relative variation in salt mass concentration.
Depending on the water content, the measured WLRs in Fig. 10 before the salinity correction (empty blue
circles) are more or less affected, with many being out of the commercial specifications of the meter (dashed
black lines). When the salinity sensor is integrated to the MPFM, the monitored salinity change Δs can be
used to adjust the MPFM water point. The salinity-corrected WLRs (filled red triangles) are now within
the commercial specs of the meter, including the high-GVF points, typically challenging for gamma-ray
absorption-based MPFMs. Note that due to their very low WLR of 10%, two flow periods with 82.5%
and 96% GVF are hardly affected by the salinity change (overlapping markers) and, consequently, by the
salinity correction.
IPTC-19590-Abstract 11

Figure 10—Absolute WLR error vs GVF with salinity change from 40 kppm to 10 kppm in flow
loop: results from MPFM, before and after Δs correction with salinity from the new sensor.

Field deployment
Frac flowback jobs are characterized by a first stage of the flowback with saline water, followed by rapid
increase in salinity when the water from the formation reaches the surface, and a subsequent slow increase
in water salinity. With a water salinity sensor unit installed on a dedicated skid connected to a mobile MPFM
(Fig. 11), these stages are well tracked and represented in Fig. 12, where the salinity measured by the water
salinity sensor (ssensor, black diamonds) is monitored in real time over an 8-day long frac flowback job in
the US. The salinity measured online by the water salinity sensor in multiphase flow conditions, often with
the presence of sand / solid debris, was compared with the one measured from properly separated water
samples (ssampling, green circles). The gradual but continuous salinity increase was correctly tracked in real-
time by the water salinity sensor with ±5% accuracy.

Figure 11—Water salinity sensor mounted on a mobile skid with connection to a mobile MPFM.
12 IPTC-19590-Abstract

Figure 12—Salinity tracking during a frac flowback job, with goodness of data indicator.

As previously discussed, the automatic water point adjustment is only valid when a reliable water salinity
measurement is obtained from the water salinity sensor. As proven in flow loop tests, this is the case
for water continuous flows. When the flow is oil continuous or in the water-to-oil transition, the salinity
measurement is less reliable, and the salinity correction must not be applied, to avoid degrading the MPFM
performance. To automate water salinity correction operations, a dedicated algorithm recognizes in real
time the flow type, based on the statistical properties of the rapidly measured time-series data of mixture
permittivity/conductivity. The resulting "goodness of data indicator" is implemented in the water salinity
sensor acquisition software to update the MPFM with the measured salinity only when the flow is identified
as water continuous ("green" state); for the water-to-oil transition ("yellow" state) and oil continuous ("red"
state) flows, the salinity value is kept unchanged from the last available "good" measurement, until a new
valid salinity is measured. The color code for the "goodness of data indicator" in Fig.12 shows the three
status states of the indicator as automatically recognized by the algorithm.
Data from a three-month frac flowback job are shown in Fig. 13. Liquid samples were taken regularly
during the first week: the water salinity sensor tracked remarkably well the steep increase in salinity (and
in GVF) at the beginning of the flowback. After the initial period, the MPFM and the water salinity sensor
were left unmanned and only three more samples were taken. Although the job was stopped and the well
was repeatedly shut in, the water salinity sensor continuously tracked the salinity within an accuracy range
of ±5%, under multiphase-flow conditions. Following the first well shut-ins, the WLR decreased, and the
flow entered the water-to-oil transition area with degradation in salinity estimate, as indicated by the highly
fluctuating salinity data that are correctly recognized by the "goodness of data indicator". When the WLR
gradually increased and the flow returned to the water continuous regime, the salinity was measured with
small uncertainty again and the algorithm enabled the MPFM measurement to be updated with the valid
salinity in real time.
IPTC-19590-Abstract 13

Figure 13—Three-month salinity tracking during an unmanned frac flowback job.

Conclusions
The new microwave water salinity sensor, when integrated into a field-proven commercial MPFM product,
extends the operating range of the flowmeter and maintains its metrology performance in situations with
large salinity changes. The real-time salinity tracking and the robustness of the water salinity sensor are
demonstrated for water continuous flows with an accuracy of ±5% in multiphase flows and with the presence
of solids in the case of frac flowback jobs. The automatic update of water salinity and hence of the water point
of gamma-ray absorption-based MPFMs opens the way to unmanned production monitoring operations.
Either used as a standalone product or fully integrated with an MPFM, the water salinity sensor has been
extensively validated in flow loop tests and under harsh field conditions, successfully demonstrating high
measurement accuracy and reliability.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Schlumberger for permission to publish this paper.

Nomenclature
d fluid medium thickness
n number of photons per second (count rate)
s salinity
T temperature
α phase fraction
Γ reflection coefficient
ε dielectric permittivity
λ linear attenuation coefficient
σ electrical conductivity
τ dielectric relaxation time
ω angular frequency
14 IPTC-19590-Abstract

Subscripts
0 free space / vacuum
g gas
m mixture
o oil
w water
HE High Energy
LE Low Energy

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