Subsea Processing Session Held at Offshore Energy 2014

Subsea processing was one of the topics covered today at the Offshore Energy 14 Exhibition & Conference in Amsterdam.

Subsea processing provides an alternative to production equipment located on a fixed or floating platform.

The session discussed the latest developments in subsea processing solutions including water removal and re-injection or disposal, boosting, gas separation and gas compression.

Industry experts form FMC Technologies, ExonMobil, Aker Solutions and GE Oil & Gas have presented the viability of subsea processing for both green fields and brown fields.

During the presentation, Reda Akdim, Innovation & Technology Director, FMC Technologies / Separation Innovation & Research Centre (SIRC), talked about high water production, addressing friction losses in transport lines and how they are responsible for flow drop after flow rate increasement (taking more flow from the reservoir).

“We need to support all our operators to be able to accelerate their production, to increase their recovery in thier reservoirs,” said Akdim.

Ed Grave, Fractionation & Separation Advisor, ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, discussed Exxon’s qualification strategy and how ExxonMobil has taken a more global approach to the qualification of robust shallow-water 3-phase separator design which has been tested over a wide range of operating conditions.

In his presentation, Grave detailed the steps taken in designing the subsea separator for solids, the qualification of the components used, and the results of the sand handling tests.

To qualify the sand removal devices, qualification programs were carried out at ProlabNL and NOV/Merpro. Sand settling tests showed that approximately 75% of the sand settled near the inlet and very little sand reached the midpoint of separator during the sand removal tests, with only the sand removal cyclones in operation, Vendor A removed 58% and Vendor B removed 50%; with intermittent sand jetting, the sand removal efficiencies increased to 85% and 82% for Vendor A and B, respectively.

Kjell Olav Stinessen, First Chief Engineer, Subsea Power & Process, Aker Solutions, talked about Asgard subsea compression system project that’s going to be realised in 2015.

It’s the world’s first full scale subsea compression project in the Norwegian Sea. Asgard ranks among the largest developments on the Norwegian continental shelf, embracing a total of 52 wells drilled through 16 seabed templates.

Stinessen mentioned that subsea compression is still in its early stages and that it will see a lot of development in the future. Innovative solutions are under development, in order to further optimize this system and extend its applicability to a broader range of gas fields world-wide.

Also in her presentation, Kristin Elgsaas, Senior Product Manager for Subsea Power in Subsea Systems, GE Oil & Gas, covered different power system solutions that address specific project characteristics such as long tie-backs, ultra-deep water, multiple and distributed loads, as well as key products technologies in typical power systems.

Subsea World News Staff