The American Oil & Gas Reporter: Strategies Optimize Crude Purchasing

W Energy Software’s Director of Measurement, Stephen Anson, was interviewed for a featured article in The American Oil & Gas Reporter’s February 2021 digital publication. Titled ‘Strategies Optimize Crude Purchasing‘, Anson discusses the vital role of data management to accurately account for crude purchasing. Read it now:

By Tim Beims and Kari Johnson

For four generations, the Maclaskey name has been associated with crude oil purchasing and transportation services, beginning in Eastern Kansas in 1924. Today, Maclaskey Oilfield Services Inc. has a fleet of state-of-the-art equipment for oil and water hauling, well servicing, pumping and other operations in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.

A lot has changed since Walter L. Maclaskey–the first generation of crude oil haulers in the family–transported his first load on a Model T truck. But just as it was back then, accurate oil quality and volumetric measurements are critical for both the producer and the purchaser. Even something as subtle and unavoidable as seasonal shifts in ambient air temperatures can impact the performance of the gun barrel and processing equipment, affecting the emulsion of the production stream entering storage tanks, especially for lower-gravity and paraffinic oils.

“In the different basins and field pools in the regions we serve, there are various specific crude oil characteristics–from low-gravity heavy asphaltenes to high-gravity condensate,” reports Kelly Maclaskey, president of the El Dorado, Ks.-based company. “The majority of the producers we deal with strive to have their lease crude ready to sell by meeting merchantable specifications.”

Regardless of the type of produced crude, Maclaskey says production best practices are a must for meeting crude purchasing specifications. That includes maintaining surface and subsurface equipment in optimal condition, and keeping gun barrels, water knockouts, continuous-duty chemical pumps, etc., clean and functioning properly. “Most production personnel employ best practices to ensure crude oil is coming into stock ready to transport and sell,” he relates.

Contractually, oil quality is a key part of the language of any purchase agreement, Maclaskey explains, adding that his company not only analyzes oil at the tank battery before loading to a truck, but also regularly conducts crude oil spot checks at various points throughout its operations to further ensure quality control.

“Quality specifications are part of our division order purchase agreements,” he provides, noting that accurate pipeline grades and measurements govern and control all settlements. Specifically, the terms of the agreements include granting the purchaser the right to determine corrected volume and gravity at a temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and deduct from corrected volumes based on the percentages of basic water and sediment (BS&W) and other impurities.

In cases where the quality of the oil is not considered merchantable, the purchaser reserves the right to refuse the load. That gets back to the importance of the producer developing and adhering to best practices to ensure merchantable specifications. “Because of the variances in crude oil characteristics from one location to the next, best practices usually need to be done on a well-by-well and lease-by-lease basis,” Maclaskey concludes.

To read more, click here to visit the featured article in The American Oil & Gas Reporter’s February 2021 digital publication.

About W Energy Software

Headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, W Energy Software (formerly Waterfield Energy) offers the oil & gas industry’s only unified ERP solution built for the cloud that is relied on by more than 100 upstream and midstream companies to accelerate business performance, improve operational efficiency, and drive costs down.  W Energy Software combines precision-built software in one extendable cloud-based workspace with an intimate understanding of the oil & gas business to deliver solutions that offer flexibility, affordability, and continuous upgrades. Unlike other ERP software that loosely ties together a mix of legacy solutions and fragmented technologies, W Energy Software designed a unified upstream and midstream ERP platform to seamlessly track oil, gas, and NGL from the wellhead through transportation and marketing, eliminating data silos as well as the burden and costs of maintaining multiple systems.  With W Energy Software, oil & gas companies stay lean and agile with the tools they need to adapt to market changes and meet evolving customer needs head-on, all while gaining the confidence that their business is running on the latest technology. For more information, please visit www.wenergysoftware.com.