Subsea Compression: Sustainably Unlocking Subsea Gas Resources to Any Scale

Abstract The drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions set to the energy sector has to happen while the world continues to face an increasing demand in energy to fuel global development. To solve this complex equation the transition to gas production to enhance the existing energy mix is a recognized step to produce more affordable energy with reduced carbon footprint. Many of the gas resources still available today are subsea and bring with them specific subsea production challenges. During the last decades the subsea industry has developed, qualified, and deployed advanced production technologies capable of significantly enhancing the recovery factor of subsea assets. Subsea boosting and processing technologies have now been deployed in many fields over the globe. They have proven their reliability and efficiency to extract more hydrocarbon from subsea reservoirs. They represent a game changing opportunity to boost the productivity of future subsea gas production while reducing the total cost of ownership of subsea assets as well as their associated carbon intensity. Subsea compression takes advantage of more than 25 years of advancements in the boosting domain. The lessons learned in the subsea boosting domain provide an unparalleled experience with over 120 systems delivered across the globe, totaling close to 5 million hours of cumulated operating time. The benefits of subsea compression are particularly evident for deep waters and long tiebacks. Studies show that the reservoir recovery factor can be increased, to give up to 25% more gas while the total power required per volume produced can be reduced by more than 60% if subsea compression is used. With two systems already in operation and two projects currently in execution, subsea compression proves to be a mature solution to boost subsea gas production for a large spectrum of field configurations and flow conditions. From simple system architectures capable of boosting the unprocessed wet gas stream to a more advanced solution where separation of gas and liquid is applied, the proven subsea compression technology bricks offer a unique flexibility and scalability to accommodate a wide range of reservoir sizes and system constraints. In other words, sustainably unlocking subsea gas resources to any scale.