Metrological assurance of quality control of natural gas

Abstract

A complex of studies on the development of a system of metrological assurance of measurement technologies in the recovery, transportation, and delivery of gas to customers in the Russian Federation is considered. A system of metrological assurance for quality control of natural gas developed at the Gazprom company that supports the traceability of the results of measurements to the state primary standard of units of mole fraction and mass concentration of the components in gaseous media (GET 154-01) and renders the results of quality control of natural gas internationally recognizable is presented. Russian natural gas is of great importance for the energy balance of the European Union, since the volume of Russian gas supplied to the member countries of the European Union is at least 35% of the total volume of gas imported by these countries, besides which natural gas plays a decisive role in the energy sector, chemical industry, and municipal ser- vices of Russia. In 2008, a new law, On Assurance of the Uniformity of Measurements (1), was adopted in connection with the need to adapt the Russian system of measurements to international practice and strengthen the legal foundation of international cooperation in the area of metrology, as well as in light of the contemporary needs of the national economy. In accordance with the new law, the trade turnover of natural gas is assigned to the effective realm of state regulation of the assurance of the uniformity of measurements. Therefore, measurements that support quality control of natural gas must be performed with the use of normative and technical documentation in the form of standards imposed on methods of measurement or certification of measurement techniques; measuring instruments that have been added to the State Register of Measuring Instruments of the Russian Federation; and approved types of standard samples that are used for graduation and validation of working mea- suring instruments and that assure the traceability of the results of measurements to the national primary standards of the units of the physical constants. By the early 1990s, Russian gas shipping firms had essentially become powerless in the face of the new realities of the burgeoning market economy. Questions related to reliable control over commercial goods as a function not only of the volume of delivered gas, but also its quality and questions of compatibility of the results of estimation of the quality of nat- ural gas with the use of different analytic methods, etc. had become acute. The then effective normative documentation on quality control of gas which had been developed in the 1970s and 1980s could not be used to solve newly arising problems,