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8

SUBPRO Subsea Production and Processing

PhD candidate,

Diana Gonzalez

Co-Supervisor, Prof.

Sigbjørn Sangesland

Co-Supervisor, Prof.

Emeritus Michael Golan

Subsea gate box

Different wells in a subsea

oil

field have different production capacities, diffe

production constraints and different production targets dictated by rese

management. Therefore, they are subject to individual management and con

However, the cluster nature of the field,

commingling the production streams of the

individual

wells,

creates

a

strong

interdependence of the flow rates and

production pressures of the individual wells.

Thus, as the wells are producing in a network, a

change in operating conditions of one well,

affects all other wells in the cluster and

consequently the total network outcome. The

results of this interdependency is that the

production rate of the integrated system is,

most often, considerably sub-optimal.

This project explores new facilities and system

configurations, as well as novel strategies to

achieve efficient and optimal management of the integrated system. This include

optimization over the entire life of the field, accounting for the considerable cha

in production conditions associated with the reservoir recovery process.

In short, the challenge in the project is to optimise the recovery and revenue fro

asset by managing the interdependencies between the wells.

The project will identify and evaluate the feasibility and the implication of variou

subsea systems architecture alternatives. A central element of the project is the

development of a modular and multi-functional assembly to allow easy re-routin

well streams and a quick and easy deployment of separation and compression

capabilities to a single well, to a group of wells or to the entire cluster. The assem

named Subsea gate box will be configured to account for all the default demands

modern subsea process equipment, including; compactness, robustness, ease of

deployment and integration in the entire system and ease of operation.

The Subsea gate box is configurable as a template that can accommodate individ

well modules and compartments, containing process equipment (

Figure 3

). The

process equipment may include separators, pumps, compressors, control valves

or flow meters, according to the characteristics of the well stream. A task in the e

phase of the project (

Figure 4

) will be to identify the leading technology in the

market that suits best to a compact and modular solution. The project deliverabl

will include a description of the state-of-the-art subsea process technology,

Figure 3. Subsea Gate Box concept sk

Co-supervisor,

Professor Emeritus

Michael Golan

Co-supervisor,

Assoc. Professor

Milan Stanko

Postdoc,

Mariana Diaz

Project manager

and main

supervisor,

Prof. Sigbjørn

Sangesland

Figure 5. Field development concepts activities

Field development concepts

Identify ideal field

architecture

Economic

Analysis

Production

Profile

Reservoir

Simulations

Production

System

Simulations

Costs

Analysis

Analyse Flow

assurance issues

Operational

Challenges and

Technological

Bottleneck (Current

Technologies)

Explore and

Analyse

potential

Enablers (New

Technologies)

Figure

.

Field development conc pts activ ties

Over the last years, the world energy demand has

increased exponentially, bringing the necessity

of developing hydrocarbon production systems in

remote areas e.g. remote arctic fields, deep and

ultra-deep water offshore fields and low energy

reservoirs. However, the development and oper-

ation of such type of fields is challenging due to

the safety and environmental risks, weather sea-

son limitations, complex logistics, low sea tempe-

ratures, requirements for energy consumption,

high investments costs etc. The main objective of

this project is to determine, analyse and rank cost

effective strategies to develop remote offshore oil

reservoirs with low energy. A secondary objective

is to analyse cost effective solutions for long trans-

port distances taking into account flow assurance.

A thorough literature review will be performed

including consultations with th industrial part-

ners to determine which field architecture con-

cepts should be analysed and considered for low

energy remote offshore fields. There will be a

strong focus in new tec nologies and tendencies

in subsea processing and boosting. Some exam-

ples are:

• Production t floater and transportation to

shore (traditional)

• Subsea separation and transportation to shore

(reinjection of gas and water)

• Multiphase boosti g and transport tio t

shore

• Subsea to beach

Field development concepts

Project manager and main

PhD supervisor, Associate

Prof. Milan Stanko

The research will be divided into two main

activities

(Figure 5)

, the first consists of identify-

ing one or several ideal field architectures for the

development of a remote oil reservoir with low

energy. The second activity consists of analysing

and evaluating flow assurance issues in these

ideal field architectures.

The first activity will be carried out evaluating

two main aspects for each field architecture con-

cept; he ec nomi s, taking into account api-

tal expenditures (drilling costs, equipment cost,

installation costs etc.) and operating expenditures

(maintenance, intervention, flow assurance meas-

ures etc.) and an operational evaluation, where

the production profile of each field architecture

will be computed and evaluated. The input and

advice for the calculations and simulations from

the industrial partners will be taken into account

to keep the analysis as realistic as possible. The

project will develop Integrated asset models (dig-

ital field) for the selected concepts and will use

realistic models with built in commercial software

if possible. This allows running simulations until

end of asset life.

For the econd activity, flow assurance issues will

be addressed. Here, the operational challenges

and technological bottlenecks of the current

technologies will be analysed and new enabling

technologies will be explored and analysed.