Did you know that the accuracy and validity of natural gas custody transfer metering is covered under the US Sarbanes Oxley law?

I didn’t either until I read this informative post by Jim Cahill over at the Emerson Process Experts blog.

Here’s my short take on what’s required to do a professional job at custody transfer metering for many industries.

• Proper design and installation of metering equipment, which includes selecting the right equipment in the first place. This is a very competitive market and there’s plenty of great hardware available. So, this really boils down to quality installation design and implementation.
• Routine and regular verification of the performance of the system. This is where Martel comes in the a range of useful calibration products such as the BetaGauge 321A. Our calibrators have the performance, reliability and features needed to do a great job of calibrating gas custody transfer systems.
• Technicians who are professionally trained professionals. This may be the hardest piece of the puzzle to fit in. Finding, keeping and motivating quality personnel is a major challenge for corporations world-wide.

It’s ironic that one of the events that instigated the Sarbanes Oxley Act was the implosion of Enron Corporation, a company that started out in the natural gas energy business.

BetaGauge 321 Dual Range Pressure Calibrator

Do you need to know more or wish you knew more about flowmeters?

Our friends at OMEGA Engineering have an excellent on-line tutorial in their Transactions material. I think you can also request this in hard copy from them.

The tutorial starts out with some interesting history about the development of flowmeters. I’ll bet you didn’t know that the earliest flowmeters are from around 5,000 BCE!

The material is technical enough to be of interest, but doesn’t really require much beyond algebra and a little knowledge of physics to be understandable.

The topics cover differential pressure type flowmeters, mechanical (positive displacement) flowmeters, various electronic flowmeters including magnetic flowmeters, vortex meters and ultrasonic flowmeters. There’s also a section on mass flow measurement using coriolis and thermal flowmeters.

It’s worth a look. You can find it here.

Martel is making history with the latest iteration of the BetaGauge, The model 330. This is the first handheld pressure calibrator with a built-in ELECTRIC pump to generate test pressure from high vacuum to 150 PSI (10 Bar/1000kPa).

We’re calling it fingertip calibration. All the tech needs to do is push the button. An electric pump does the rest.

Here are some highlights of this new product:

1. It is lightweight and handheld.
2. The pump is our own proprietary design for high efficiency. We have a PATENT PENDING on this design.
3. It will generate up to 10 Bar / 150 PSI into a typical calibration volume.
4. Battery life is long with more than 300 cycles to full pressure on one set of batteries.
5. RTD port for support of mass flowmeter/computer calibration.
6. External pressure port for connection of any of 29 ranges of BetaPort-P pressure modules.
7. Generates both vacuum and pressure with the switch of a valve.
8. Patented soft release vent valve for controlled venting of pressure.

BetaGauge 330 Data Sheet

We have gotten good press for this, too. It was featured in an article in the September issue of Control Magazine. Here is a link to the issue. Go to page 118.

We’re in the midst of beta testing now and expect regular shipments to begin at the first of 2009. With pricing less than all the competition and the convenience of electric pumping, we have high expectations for success.