The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has made two significant changes in its final onshore orders that affect the measurement of natural gas and oil produced on federal and most Native American lands.
In response to concerns raised by Tulsa, Okla.-based GPA Midstream Association, BLM grandfathered in a significant amount of midstream equipment, the association said on Nov. 30.
“We are pleased BLM worked collaboratively with us, and through that collaboration, we were able to save GPA Midstream members valuable resources due to the significant amount of grandfathering, which greatly reduces our costs of implementation,” Matthew Hite, GPA Midstream’s vice president of government affairs, said in a statement. “This is a significant change since BLM’s initial position included no grandfathering of equipment and would have resulted in our members spending many millions of dollars to replace existing measurement equipment.”
BLM also eliminated the 11-digit facility measurement point (FMP) number that the agency initially was going to require on all midstream flow computers (which convert meter signals to volume of gas or oil measured) and reports. GPA Midstream strongly advocated for the change.
“GPA Midstream had significant concerns with this since our midstream systems are only able to handle up to 8 digits, and this would have required our members to upgrade or replace entire flow computer systems that would easily cost in the millions of dollars,” Hite said. “We are pleased BLM was able to recognize the current limitations of technology of flow computers and realize they can still get accurate measurement results without placing millions of dollars in compliance costs on our membership.”
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