Subsea Processing
- Allow multiphase separation in subsea deep water environment beyond 1500 m water depth
- Reduce vessel wall thickness and weight when compared to traditional horizontal/vertical vessels
- Allow smaller subsea module footprint, size and weight
- Simplify fabrication and seabed installation
- Simplify separator solution and robust process
- Provide good slug handling, complimentary to inline technologies for process robustness
- Reduce overall project CAPEX
Main applications
- Upsteam subsea gas and liquid separation
- Gas / liquid separation
- Sand removal
- Produced water
Concept
As part of ongoing JIP, we have a concept under development for multiphase separation using compact internals in spherical vessels to enable the next level of technology advancement for subsea processing, as either standalone unit or as a hybrid one in combination with compact inline pre- and / or post-separation. This concept includes gas / liquid, oil / water and sand separation and is scheduled for testing and verification in both a low pressure and a high pressure multiphase flow loop under realistic conditions.
The spherical subsea separator is much more compact than conventional horizontal separator vessels with comparable separation performance. The conventional spherical separator efficiency is lower than a conventional horizontal separator, but our customized high performance internals allow for at least the same separation efficiency as with a horizontal separator. In this comparison, the spherical system also has the benefits of largely reduced footprint and weight, as well as simplified fabrication and seabed installation. The latter is highly important as typical subsea installation costs account for equal or higher costs than the combined system design, fabrication and assembly. The internals arrangement within the spherical system is largely simplified, thus resulting in a simpler control philosophy. The spherical concept is intended to capacitate ultra-deep subsea processing solutions towards 3000 m water depths that are robust, reliable and with economically attractive for fabrication and Installation.
