The Komax Custody Transfer (CT) mixer was created to improve the accuracy of flow meters for the custody transfer of crude oil products. The need for this device came to our attention over 25 years ago when Chevron came to us and asked that we design a low pressure drop static mixture that would improve the accuracy of crude oil sampling. After several months of work Komax was able to come up with the CT mixer to solve Chevron’s mixing application problems. Since then over 10,000 of these CT sampling mixers have been purchased around the world and it’s now considered the industry standard for custody transfer applications.
The Komax CT mixer uses what is called site specific smart mixing to evenly disperse the water and bottom sediment all through the crude oil. It also provides a straightening flow which furnishes uniform measurements. The two of these processes combined correct very minor miscalculations of crude oil consistency. Since accuracy is extremely important when transferring custody of such a valuable asset and a small error can add up to a huge amount of lost revenue the Komax CT mixer makes up for its initial cost within a matter of hours.
The Komax Custody Transfer mixer is placed upstream from the crude oil sampling transfer line. It’s placement in that location makes certain that the water and the bottom sediment is completely mixed and spread all through the crude oil stream to get the best and most accurate crude oil metering execution. The Komax CT mixer can be placed in either a vertical or a horizontal pipeline. The internal back-mixing that is created by its elements send some of the oil flow of the oil back upstream in the CT mixer which minimizes the spikes of bottom sediment and water concentration. This helps create a much more accurate crude oil transfer while making certain the crude oil is not over mixed. One last feature of this mixer is the placement of an exit straightening fin which stops all of the gyration of the flow down stream of the CT mixer. If it did not do this then the strong agitation of the stream will create problems with accuracy.