ConocoPhillips becomes member of Norwegian subsea pump JIP

Oil major ConocoPhillips is the latest addition to a joint industry Project (JIP), which aims to “revolutionize pumps for seabed and unmanned platforms.”

The project aims to bring Fuglesangs Subsea’s Omnirise Single-phase Booster to market by mid-2019.

ConocoPhillips joins Equinor, Aker BP, Lundin, and National Oilwell Varco in the JIP, which is also supported with NOK 14 million by the Research Council of Norway’s “Demo2000” program.

According to Fuglesangs Subsea, a privately-held Norwegian subsea technology company, the Omnirise Boosting System is an “Increased Oil Recovery” (IOR) tool that has the potential to deliver improvements in all three areas: cost, weight, and reliability.

As an operator of Ekofisk, the first discovery on the Norwegian shelf, ConocoPhillips cares deeply about increased recovery from offshore wells.

“Traditional subsea pump solutions are costly, add tremendous weight to a platform and their reliability record is not stellar,” founder and CEO at Fuglesangs Subsea, Alexander Fuglesang, said.

“This is why they are not in wider use, even though booster pumps can add 10-30 per cent to recovery rates. One percent increased recovery equals more than NOK 200 billion at 60 dollars per barrel…in Norway alone.”

As explained by the subsea company, conventional pump systems require not only mechanical shaft seals which fail all too frequently, they also require a constant flow of so-called barrier fluid, supplied by topside hydraulic equipment and delivered through umbilical lines that can stretch over many kilometers. Traditional variable speed drives also add considerable weight and volume topside, with projected subsea versions looking equally as bulky.

Fuglesangs Subsea said that the Omnirise system gets rid of all these elements by employing a patented Hydromag Drive Unit.

In capex alone, Rystad Energy has estimated that Omnirise can provide savings of NOK 150 million on a single-well boosting installation, compared to conventional boosting systems.