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While subsea developments have been made possible by technologies such as subsea trees, risers and umbilicals, subsea processing has been an elusive solution for many years. Whether describing subsea separation, re-injection or boosting, subsea processing has helped to revolutionize offshore developments worldwide.
With production equipment located on the seafloor rather than on a fixed or floating platform, subsea processing provides a less expensive solution for myriad offshore environments. Originally conceived as a way to overcome the challenges of extremely deepwater situations, subsea processing has become a viable solution for fields located in harsh conditions where processing equipment on the water's surface might be at risk. Additionally, subsea processing is an emergent application to increase production from mature or marginal fields.
Saving space on offshore production facilities, separation of water, sand and gas can now be performed subsea. Subsea separation reduces the amount of production transferred from the seafloor to the water's surface, debottlenecking the processing capacity of the development. Also, by separating unwanted components from the production on the seafloor, flowlines and risers are not lifting these ingredients to the facility on the water's surface just to direct them back to the seafloor for re-injection. Re-injection of produced gas, water and waste increases pressure within the reservoir that has been depleted by production. Also, re-injection helps to decrease unwanted waste, such as flaring, by using the separated components to boost recovery.
On deepwater or ultra-deepwater fields, subsea boosting is needed to get the hydrocarbons from the seafloor to the facilities on the water's surface. Subsea boosting negates backpressure that is applied to the wells, providing the pressure needed from the reservoir to transfer production to the sea surface.
Even in mid-water developments, subsea boosting, or artificial lift, can create additional pressure and further increase recovery from wells, even when more traditional EOR methods are being used.
Expected to come on-stream in 2011, Total's Pazflor project offshore West Africa is utilizing the region's first-ever subsea gas/liquid separation system. One of the world's deepest water
developments, Shell's Perdido project in the US Gulf of Mexico is currently under development and will also incorporate subsea boosting and separation to achieve production. There are a number of oil services companies that presently offer subsea processing equipment. Leaders in this innovative solution include Cameron, Expro, FMC Technologies and GE Oil & Gas.