Bulk liquid storage terminals are located in ports and along rivers, canals and pipelines. They serve the vital economic purpose of transferring liquid products from one transportation mode to another. Products handled include crude oil, petroleum products and a wide variety of chemicals, as well as ethanol, biodiesel, and fertilizers. When the petroleum and petro products are transferred from one operator to another the term “custody transfer” is used to describe the exchange. Accurate metering assures an equitable exchange of the liquid commodity between both parties.
The custody transfer includes the transferring of raw and refined petroleum between tanks and tankers; tankers and ships and other transactions. Meanwhile, Custody Transfer in fluid measurement is defined as a metering point (location) where the fluid is being measured for sale from one party to another. During custody transfer, precise measurement is of great importance to both the company delivering the material and the eventual recipient when transferring a material.
Seraphin® fabricated measures based on industry standards to check the meters that insure an equitable transfer. Our volumetric calibration provers are made to hold a capacity typically to 1500 Gallons or 5000 Liter depending on the speed of the pump in gallons or liters per minute. The capacity is measured for a minimum of 1 to 2 times the minutes of flow depending on the local regulations. Seraphin® complies with NIST, OIML and API guidelines when fabricating these stainless steel vessels.
Custody transfer operations can occur at a number of points along the way; these may include operations, transactions or transferring of oil from an oil production platform to a ship, barge, railcar, truck and also to the final destination point, such as a refinery. When the flow rate is too rapid for an open prover a pipe prover is used. Seraphin® manufactures “high accuracy neck” provers which are used to set the accuracy of the electronic set points in a pipe prover.
For terminal applications safety options are available with our mobile provers including either thermal or optical overfill protection, Bottom Loading Fill with 4" API Coupling and Vapor Recovery.