Especially in the Middle East and in South America onshore there are fields in operation, which are spread far apart from the gathering centre and often produce low volumes only. Often several gathering centres are far away from each other and the product conveyed is transported by pipelines. These are joint one by one, for further processing or for transport by ship from the interior (Sahara in Algeria, Oman, Columbia a.o.) to the coast.

The low volumes often do not justify high costs. Thus, for transportation often steel pipelines are used, which require the injection of corrosion inhibitor. Partially, scale inhibitors and other chemicals such as drag reducers are also applied.

With a higher number of older production areas the problem gets bigger, as the oil/gas content decreases and the volume of undesired compounds resp. constituents increases. In many cases air driven injection pumps were used, which, however, were driven by a waste product - sour gas - and often they were damaged within some hours of operation. The sour gas blown-off into the atmosphere also causes local corrosion damages and so expensive additional maintenance.

The use of electrically driven metering and injection packages resp. pumps often was not possible, as the power supply of the gathering centre was exhausted (local generator). Moreover it required the expensive installation of several up to 60 km long power lines to provide power supply to the many small production points spread around the gathering centre. With the additional danger that sand storms, wandering dunes and roaming camels could cause the requirement for a continuous check and maintenance as well as the related costs.