Subsea Processing Systems: Future Vision

Subsea processing and boosting can be key enablers or optimization alternatives for challenging field developments and their benefits increase with water depth, flowrates and step-out. Petrobras has invested a lot on the development of such technologies, supported, among other pillars, on an aggressive R&D policy through its technological programs like PROCAP, and several subsea processing and boosting systems have successfully operated in Petrobras fields. Considering that, these technologies are being considered for application in potential Petrobras' scenarios including mature and green fields. This paper aims to give an overview of the systems developed and applied in Petrobras prospects during the last twenty years, such as the Vertical Annular Separation and Pumping System (VASPS), Boosting Systems with Electrical Submersible Pumps (Mudline ESP and MOBO), Subsea Multiphase Pumps, Subsea Raw Water Injection and Subsea Oil-Water Separation (SSAO). It also reports the new R&D initiatives related to subsea processing and boosting that are being developed within PROCAP - Future Vision technology program, showing the main motivations of these developments, the main benefits of using each technology, the technological challenges and typical application scenarios. Also, this paper illustrates the analysis and evaluations performed so far, for all of the new developments presented. Introduction Petrobras has developed and applied several technologies during the last 20 years, forming a very useful " toolbox" for subsea processing and boosting applications. After successful implementation of several technology-projects, on subsea boosting and processing, Petrobras and other operators have demonstrated that such technologies are definitely a very important field development tool, as predicted decades ago. In the beginning of the exploitation of oil&gas offshore fields, the main concern is related to the initial investment to construct the production units, to drill the wells and to install all the equipment necessary for the production. During this phase, there is a lack of information regarding the field, mainly about the reservoir behavior. Normally, the reservoir behavior is calibrated during the productive life of the field. Due to this, the operators usually adopt a conventional solution, not considering the use of new technologies as the first alternative. These are considered most when they are vital for a specific field development. For most fields in Campos Basin, Brazil, the main recovery mechanism for reservoirs, since the beginning of the production, is waterflooding. A typical curve of produced fluids starts with the predominance of oil, rising to the production plateau, until the water breakthrough occurs. At this point, the production presents increasing water content in the liquid stream. So, as it is necessary a massive water injection to keep the pressure of the reservoir, after a few years the watercut of the production increases a lot. Additionally to the two aspects described above, there is also a need to overcome the constraints of existing platforms. These motivations led Petrobras to start in the early 90's the development of subsea processing and boosting solutions. Technological Programs were created to support these developments. Several processing and boosting projects were installed since year 2001, when the VASPS was deployed in the Marimba Field (Campos Basin, Brazil). These projects will be described in a brief way in this paper, focusing their main technological aspects.

The Tordis Subsea Separation, Boosting and Injection System (SSBI) will be the world's first commercial subsea processing station of its type. The system will be installed in 2007 at the Statoil operated Tordis field in the North Sea. The system will include a separator that removes water from the well-stream, a multiphase pump for boosting the production rate, and a water injection pump for the discharge of separated water in a disposal well. The Tordis SSBI system has been established with a focus on the use of simple technical solutions using equipment with successful operational experiences from both topside and subsea applications. Nevertheless, a technology qualification programme has been executed to qualify and document the performance of new components. This was necessary to ensure that the system had a technology maturity prior to sanction of the project at level that made sure that the business unit felt confident with regards to remaining risks. The Tordis Technology Qualification Programme comprises of five activities; the qualification of subsea desander, performance evaluation of the subsea separator, design optimisation and testing of the multiphase and water injection pumps with respect to sand handling, testing of valves operated in sand slurry, and qualification of a 36 kV dry mate high voltage connector. FMC Technologies and key partners exectured these qualification activities for the project. Statoil and other suppliers have also carried out other qualification actities that has important to achieve a satisfactory risk level for the overall Tordis project beyond the scope of supply from FMC. This paper describes the Tordis SSBI technology qualification programme executed by FMC and partners. This includes why these activities have been important for the system to be installed subsea, the content of the activities and the main conclusions. Introduction The project for the delivery of the Tordis Subsea Separation Boosting Injection System is currently being conducted as part of Statoil's work for increased oil recovery at the Tordis field (Tordis IOR). This is the first commercial subsea processing system, which comprises of subsea water separation, multiphase boosting, and re-injection of water. Hence, the Tordis SSBI project is a major technology step using subsea processing solutions that are expected to be important field development tools for the offshore oil and gas industry in the future. The focus in the establishment of the system solution for the Tordis application has been to utilise simple and, as far as possible, use well-known technical solutions. Using wherever possible experiences from both earlier subsea and topside process applications has been an important basis. However, such a new system must also use new technical building blocks that need special attention during the early phases of the project. Hence, in parallel with the FEED phase of the project, a Technology Qualification Programme (TQP) began November 2004. The purpose of the qualification work has been to:Ensure selection of proper concept solutions and components that will be technically available for the delivery project.Ensure qualification of needed components.

With ever increasing energy demands and the depletion of hydrocarbon resources, marginal fields play an important role in oil and gas exploitation. Flow assurance issues, including wax and hydrate formation, can be found in long distance tiebacks. Subsea processing, where processing equipment is installed on the seabed, can be used to solve these flow assurance issues in remote marginal fields. Subsea processing is the leading edge technology for unlocking production from reservoir under complex conditions. This paper demonstrates the opportunities in marginal field development, and analyses the implication of applying subsea processing in remote marginal fields. The marginal field case study concerns a development with an 80 km tieback, having reserves of 120 million barrels of oil and in water 3,000 m deep in the Gulf of Mexico. The technical and economic aspects of two field development options, one employing subsea separation and boosting, and the other, an electric trace heated pipe-in-pipe flowline and subsea boosting, are compared. Hydraulic analysis of three phase flow (oil, gas, and water) using state of the art simulation software (OLGA) is performed to demonstrate production fluid behavior inside the flowline. Life cycle cost, combining both economic (CAPEX and OPEX) and risk factors (RAM), are used as the selection criterion. Subsea separation with continuous hydrate inhibitor injection can prevent flowline blockage over the field life, while the electric trace heated pipe-in-pipe option may require subsea boosting to override the large pressure drop in late field life. In the analysis, subsea separation shows potential life cycle cost savings of up to 13% compared to electric trace heated pipe-in-pipe, indicating it may be the appropriate option when developing fields with these specific conditions. Improvement of subsea processing requires more compact designs for deepwater applications, which will help reduce both capital investment and intervention cost.

The Parque das Conchas (BC-10) development located in the deepwater BC-10 block offshore Brazil - comprises of relatively low-energy, low-API reservoirs (Ostra, Argonauta B-West) and one high-GOR field (Abalone) - tied back subsea 9 to 34 km to an FPSO. To enhance production and maximize recovery, an innovative subsea separation and boosting technology has been employed, consisting of a shallow well conductor that contains a caisson where liquid and gas are separated prior to transport to the surface. In the case of Ostra/Abalone, separated gas flows naturally to the FPSO via a dedicated, un-insulated gas flowline. Separated single phase fluids at the bottom of the Caisson are boosted via an electrical submersible pump (ESP) located within the caisson, and transported to the FPSO in a wet insulated flowline. The heavier B-West fluid is separated and recombined in the caisson and pumped as a multi-phase mixture. The addition of the Caisson/ESP (C-ESP) subsea separator and pumping system has significantly reshaped the flow assurance challenges and analysis processes typically applied to deepwater subsea tieback developments. For instance, several of the traditional flow assurance concerns - such as hydrate control, slug management, sand handling, and emulsion/foam tendency - will now involve a different set of design and operability requirements. Additionally, " ensuring the flow?? in the C-ESP system itself involves several unique design and operability challenges, associated with separator design and control and mitigation of separation inefficiencies. This paper describes some of the new challenges and analysis tools to be encompassed by flow assurance engineering, as this new area of subsea processing emerges in deepwater developments. The role of the flow assurance engineer will expand to include subsea " process systems engineering?? - i.e. the application and extension of traditional process engineering approaches to the design and operability of subsea separation and artificial lift systems. Introduction The Parque das Conchas development is located in block BC-10, approximately 74.5 mile South West of the coast at the city of Vitoria in Brazil in water depths about 5,900 ft. Shell is the operator with a 50% working interest, in a joint venture with Petrobras (35%) and ONGC (15%). Phase 1 of the development includes three fields - Ostra, Abalone and Argonauta B-West, each with different fluid properties. Argonauta O-North is currently in planning for development in Phase 2. Ostra and Abalone fields use the concept of subsea separation and boosting. B-West uses a novel non-separated boosting system in which the multiphase fluids from the well are separated and then recombined and boosted using a conventional ESP. The Ostra field will be produced via six horizontal wells. The oil has an API of 24 and a GOR of 274 scf/sbbl. Abalone has an API of 44 and a GOR of 3,800 scf/sbbl and behaves like a gas condensate. B-West has a heavier oil with an API of 16 and a GOR of 194 scf/sbbl. An additional challenge at B-West is the unusually high viscosity of the fluids, especially below the bubble-point.

ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company (EMURC) recently completed a subsea technology development and qualification program which included performance testing of an integrated, subsea compact separation system with electrocoalescence for ultra-deepwater applications. To the authors' knowledge, this was the first time that an electrocoalescer had been tested with a gravity-based, compact separator (e.g., a Pipe Separator). One challenge often seen with conventional gravity separators is the formation and build-up of stable emulsion layers, mainly associated with the processing of medium and heavy oils. In an earlier test program, the Pipe Separator, the primary oil-water separator in the subsea compact separation system, performed well; however, emulsions that were not separated in the main pipes of the Pipe Separator tended to accumulate in the outlet section. There, the emulsion layer then had to either flow out of the oil outlet (penalty on the oil quality) or the water outlet (penalty on the water quality). The medium and heavy oil trials were particularly challenging, especially at lower water cuts. In order to achieve the desired oil and water qualities, the total liquid flow rate through the system had to be reduced. To overcome this limitation, additional trials were performed later with a compact electrocoalescer, the Compact Electrostatic Coalescer (CEC™) supplied by Fjords Processing (formerly Aker Process Systems), which effectively coalesced dispersed water droplets in the oil-continuous feed into larger droplets such that they could be separated easier in the downstream Pipe Separator. The results from the additional trials demonstrated that electrocoalescence enhanced the oil-water separation performance of the integrated system at flowing and operating conditions that would have otherwise been very challenging. This paper presents a summary of the results from these additional trials. The cost of developing and deploying a subsea separation system is significant; and therefore, it may not be economical if the system is unable to achieve a sufficient capacity. The design of subsea processing systems is often a balance between what is practically achievable under the module size/weight constraints, and what production rate is required for project economics. By understanding, with confidence, the maximum liquid handling capacity of the integrated system with electrocoalescence, technical risks could be minimized, and a future subsea separation project could become more attractive. As such, the results from this test program may be of interest to operating companies considering similar technologies or future subsea separation projects.

First paragraph: Why do industrial agricultural operations continue to displace smaller family farms in spite of their continued pollution of the natural environment and degradation of rural communi­ties? Large-scale, specialized agricultural operations, such as concentrated animal feeding operations (or CAFOs), persist because they have an economic advantage over smaller, diversified farming opera­tions. They have higher ecological and social costs but lower economic costs. This economic advan­tage is commonly referred to as economies of scale. In economic theory, there are two types of economies of scale. Internal economies of scale refer to differences in the costs of production associated with different sizes of production units. In animal agriculture, “scale” refers to the number of hogs, poultry, milk cows, or beef cattle in a single farming operation or production unit. In field crop and pasture-based animal production, scale refers to the acres of land in a single production unit. External economies of scale, on the other hand, refer to differences such as the costs of fertilizer or feed, or the cost of complying with government regulations, for different sizes of management units. Management units may include one or more production units under single man­agement or control (Ross, 2022). A single farm or production unit may comprise multiple parcels of land, but a farm management unit may comprise multiple farms that are managed as a single economic entity or unit. . . .

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">ISO/SAE 21434 emphasizes comprehensive cybersecurity risk management throughout the automotive lifecycle. However, specific guidance on validating cybersecurity measures at the production level remains limited. This paper addresses the gap in production-stage validation, particularly after End-of-Line (EOL) flashing, which includes configurations of security hardware and software protection (e.g., hardware register configuration, Debug and P-flash password settings etc.)</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">Current automotive cybersecurity validation methods, despite adherence to ISO/SAE 21434, lack specific procedures for the production stage. The existing system-level validation using the ASPICE V-model (e.g., SWE.6, SYS.5) does not ensure the integrity and functionality of cybersecurity features in the final manufactured unit post-EOL flashing. This gap poses a risk of vulnerabilities being introduced during the EOL process, compromising critical security measures.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">To mitigate the cybersecurity risks in production units, particularly the binary which has been introduced during End-of-Life (EOL) flashing, we propose a dedicated testing phase on the right side of the V-cycle. This phase of testing will be focused on identifying and resolving vulnerabilities stemming from EOL flashing processes, such as incorrect memory addresses or erroneous configuration values to activate the cybersecurity protection.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">The current ASPICE V-cycle process lacks dedicated validation for software flashed via EOL procedures. This proposal addresses this critical gap by advocating for dedicated testing that will verify the integrity of hardware & Software Cybersecurity configuration (example: UCB addresses, values, DEBUG, BMHD passwords etc.,). By implementing this validation process, we aim to substantially strengthen the overall cybersecurity solutions in <b>production units.</b></div><div class="htmlview paragraph">We have defined the necessary verification criteria and test cases and developed a performance testing strategy for the production unit testing stage. This strategy aims to ensure the robustness and reliability of cybersecurity measures in the final production units.</div></div>

Feeding a growing, increasingly affluent population while limiting environmental pressures of food production is a central challenge for society. Understanding the location and magnitude of food production is key to addressing this challenge because pressures vary substantially across food production types. Applying data and models from life cycle assessment with the methodologies for mapping cumulative environmental impacts of human activities (hereafter cumulative impact mapping) provides a powerful approach to spatially map the cumulative environmental pressure of food production in a way that is consistent and comprehensive across food types. However, these methodologies have yet to be combined. By synthesizing life cycle assessment and cumulative impact mapping methodologies, we provide guidance for comprehensively and cumulatively mapping the environmental pressures (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, spatial occupancy, and freshwater use) associated with food production systems. This spatial approach enables quantification of current and potential future environmental pressures, which is needed for decision makers to create more sustainable food policies and practices.

Superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic surfaces were fabricated by facile spray coating of nanostructured WO3 on stainless steel meshes and compared its performance in oil–water separation with ZnO coated meshes. The gravity driven oil-water separation system was designed using these surfaces as the separation media and it was noticed that WO3 coated stainless steel mesh showed high separation efficiency (99%), with pore size as high as 150 µm, whereas ZnO coated surfaces failed in the process of oil-water separation when the pore exceeded 50 µm size. Since, nanostructured WO3 is a well known catalyst, the simultaneous photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants present in the separated water from the oil water separation process were tested using WO3 coated surfaces under UV radiation and the efficiency of this degradation was found to be quite significant. These results assure that with little improvisation on the oil water separation system, these surfaces can be made multifunctional to work simultaneously for oil-water separation and demineralization of organic pollutants from the separated water. Fabrication of the separating surface, their morphological characteristics, wettability, oil water separation efficiency and photo-catalytic degradation efficiency are enunciated.

The formula-fed veal industry consists of a fairly small number of production units, which are generally associated with a company which supplies feed and, in some instances, management and health advice. Production units may be independent, on contract or company owned. In many cases, there is no working relationship between the production unit and a veterinarian.
 A small survey was conducted of veterinarians who do work with veal production units. Fifteen US and Canadian veterinarians responded. These veterinarians work with a total of 322 veal farms. A summary of their responses regarding drug use on farms with which they work follows.

Energy consumption level is an important indicator to determine whether the process flow and process equipment are reasonable and optimal. Energy consumption levels of different gas plants and production units are different because of many influencing factors. Therefore, it is hard to evaluate the energy consumption levels of different gas plants and production units. Study has been done in this paper trying to solve this problem. Firstly, influencing factors of energy consumption in gas plants are analyzed and categorized by inherent factors and non inherent factors. Theoretical studies of energy consumption have been made as to each unit in gas plant. By studying of energy consumption technological process and mediums, models are built for each production unit and relevant correlations have been established. A new concept of "Baseline Energy Consumption Value (BECV)" for gas plant and process units is introduced. Secondly, the process parameters at Baseline operating condition for different production units are stipulated in accordance with relevant standards, recommended practices and optimized operating paramenters. Then the BECVs of each production unitand a gas plant can be calculated. Finally, three typical natural gas plants are taken as examples for calculating of BECVs. The calculation results are analyzed versus the actual energy consumption values. Then the energy consumption levels of each plant and unit can be evaluated. By the study of energy consumption of each production unitand gas processing plants, the bottlenecks of energy consumption in gas plants can be defined and the existing problems can be found. Plans for further process optimizations and energy saving modifications of process system can be made based on the evaluation results. The theory and methodology proposed can be further implemented to other fields including oil fields and refineries for energy saving management and process optimization.

This study investigated direct energy consumption and land performance under two different methods of farming—organic and conventional. The aim of our study was to examine the performance of farmers in the Czech Republic and identify the differences between organic and conventional farming regarding food safety and direct energy consumption. Based on the data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network of the EU, we measured the performance of both organic and conventional farmers in terms of product per unit of land and direct energy consumption per unit of product regarding the natural condition of the farm localization. Our findings show that organic farms produce lower output with less direct energy per unit of land; however, they need more direct energy for one unit of production. We found that a product from organic agriculture consumes 1.7-fold greater direct energy than a conventional product. The worse the natural conditions for farming, the broader the difference between organic and conventional regimes regarding their performance and energy consumption. Our conclusions may help shape agricultural policy in the Czech Republic, where organic farming is receiving systematic political support, leading to an increase in the proportion of organically farmed arable land.

In May 2000 Norsk Hydro reported, by means of an OTC paper, that Troll Pilot would be ready for start-up in June of that year. The Pilot was indeed started at that time. However, failures in the electrical connector system developed in the subsea installation shortly after start-up. This triggered the Repair and Upgrade Project which involved several interventions on the Troll Pilot subsea station during the summer of 2001. These repair activities, which focused on subject electrical interfaces and corresponding marine operations, were presented by an OTC paper in 2002. Following the repair operations, Troll-Pilot was started in August of that year and it has now been in continuous operation, reporting 100% availability, since August 2001. This paper will focus on presenting experience in operating the separator station and relate this to the defined operational and design strategies. Issues to be covered as a spin-off from subsea separation are implications on flow assurance and variance in the well fluid entering the separator system. The paper will also cover risk of installing a subsea separator system and relating this to the regularity experience of the station, giving feedback on main components used on the station. The Troll Pilot Separator Station is installed on the Troll Field at 340 m WD approx 3,5 km from the Troll-C Production platform. This province of the Troll field will be developed with more than 50 subsea wells. Troll-Pilot is installed in a production loop system with two production templates giving a total capacity of 8 well-slots. At the moment 6 wells has been completed and hence available for the separator station. Troll Field Location(Available in full paper) Component/Process strategies established during design stage Main objectives for the Troll Pilot development were:To improve the water treatment capacity of the Troll C platform and its environment and thus maximise ThroughputTo demonstrate commercial viability of subsea separation and boosting with a view to other applications, i.e. to be a competitor to separator stations installed on a platform. During early design stages of the Troll Pilot Subsea Separator Station, strategies for operating the various components being based on new technology and utilizing existing technology, were developed. The following main components/processes are considered to be the ones which have contributed to the results and good experience gained so far: Separator with process requirements The purpose of the process is to isolate the water phase for re-injection into a well completed in the water zone of the reservoir thus directing reduced quantities of water to the topsides facility at Troll C. The gas and oil streams are recombined at the common outlet from the separator and directed to the flow-line. The objective of achieving a feasible, practical and efficient process plant was the first and dominant thought when the Troll Pilot concept was formed. Both time and budget constraints ruled out development of new separation principles. Thus basically a simple gravity separator, utilizing the same principles as applied in separators on platforms and land-based oil production facilities, was selected. However, the following simplifications was included:

The use of subsea technologies and innovative field architectures as development solutions for oil and gas fields is fast becoming a reality. In the last ten years more than half of new global oil and gas reserves have been discovered offshore, especially in deepwater. This paper shows the selection path followed systematically for the proper technical and economical solution selection, passing through concept screening and case-specific conceptual studies. A typical case study will be presented in this paper, showing the advantages to be gained in using the proposed selection exercise, including flow assurance strategies, for the development of challenging new upcoming reserves deepwater. The values presented are for a generic offshore development. The purpose is to pinpoint the limits of existing technologies, identify new subsea architectures implementing upcoming subsea processing solutions and compare and illustrate the performances of several configurations for a development in about 1000 m of water, through a case study. A problematic oil will be considered, having a density in the range of 20–30 °API, a GOR in the range of 200–400 scf/bbl, wax and hydrate formation risk. Total liquid flowrate in the example is around 50,000 bbl/d, selected in order to be out of giant project frame. Conventional loop, single production line, electrical heating, gas/liquid separation, subsea liquid or multiphase boosting are the scrutinized solutions, applied considering on site or long distance topside facilities and upward or downward production line path. The analysis reported in this paper evidences the technical feasibility and when benefits are obtainable implementing subsea processing technology on offshore oil and gas fields. The principles described could be the base to perform a multi-parameters study for real case technology selection. This paper examines the drawbacks, limitations and advantages of various field architectures and technology solutions, that may be considered for deepwater oil development. It covers the different production phases, from start-up to tail production, without forgetting flow assurance issues, typical of long satellite tie-back lengths in deep waters. INTRODUCTION In the last ten years more than half of new global oil and gas reserves were discovered offshore, especially in deepwater [1]. Usually such hydrocarbons reservoirs are located in remote areas, far from existing facilities. Traditional development solutions to exploit this kind of reserves are no longer applicable, due to both technical and economical constraints. Technologically advanced solutions are needed in order to efficiently produce oil and gas from satellite fields to overcome technical and economical difficulties. Especially for marginal fields, containing relatively small amounts of reserves in place, increasing the overall recovery factor is crucial to make the field economically sustainable. Marginal fields means too small to support the investment required for a conventional standalone development or too depth and far from existing facilities to be produced by means of conventional surface production technologies. Therefore marginal fields are more challenging to exploit in a cost-effective manner. The only way to unlock these reserves is to minimize the investment for facilities that will extract and process the hydrocarbons.

In the current energy shortage and transition context, gas represents an alternative to provide an affordable, reliable and less GHG emissions issuing energy than other available fossil energies. Flow Assurance studies have been launched for a series of gas fields to identify optimal subsea processing functional requirements for a subsea to shore export. The objective is to confirm the robustness of subsea processing architectures identified in previous studies and to evaluate their sensibility towards water depth, step-out, fluid composition and bathymetry. First, real gas fields were selected, the portfolio was completed with notional cases constructed on analogs to reach a good mapping in depth and distance to shore. For each case, bathymetries and PVT models were established. Ledaflow® was used to construct flow models and define the necessary pipeline size based on early and late life flowrates (based upon Erosion Velocity Ratio, Turn down and hydrate risk). When the multiphase export required several pipelines in parallel, an alternative architecture was studied consisting of multiphase pipeline at early life and then gas/liquid separation plus single phases export (separated gas pipeline and liquid pipeline) for late life. Compression and boosting requirement were evaluated. More than one configuration is technically possible. The solution of "multiple multiphase export pipelines" is usually in competition with a "single multiphase pipeline at early life coupled with a subsea separation at late life". The first configuration favors operational flexibility, while the second one favors reduced installation time and cost and allows decreasing the well head back pressure to increase reserves. However, this last solution still requires the installation of a liquid line at late life. Regarding boosting requirements, each configuration has compression needs at late life. The first architecture allows to optimize the compression requirements and increase the process efficiency, while the second one present the drawback of high boosting requirements for the liquid line for great depth and longer step out. For the multiphase export, and a field with very low CGR, the governing parameter for the pressure loss and the compression requirements is the step-out, not the water depth, while, for the subsea separation scheme, the water depth becomes detrimental for the boosting requirements of the liquid line for the great water depths. This large study confirms the feasibility of subsea to shore architectures for gas fields and allows identifying the limitations of the existing technologies and anticipating future technological developments.