Standardized Subsea Controls Poised to enhance Deepwater Oil & Gas Production
Subsea Controls Market Sees Recovery on Horizon with Technological Developments
Since the beginning of 2020, the world has been rocked by the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the oil & gas industry was hit especially hard as demand waned. The global pandemic notwithstanding, the development of subsea controls has been based on a step by step development over the years, adding more and more functionalities to the various systems. Today, tremendous technology developments are ongoing, driven by the goal of placing processing systems on the seabed.
The increase in complexity is extensive compared to the early beginning with North East Frigg some 30 years ago towards the subsea compression facilities that are currently being realized. There has been a development in technological areas, such as design, materials, flow assurance, control and instrumentation, installation, and operation. The driving force has been to develop simpler and more cost-efficient ways to produce, process, and transport oil and gas offshore.
Over the years, subsea processing has been mentioned as the future of oil and gas production. The motivation for subsea processing has changed, from reducing topside weight to being an enabler for late life production, until today when subsea process facilities are being installed on greenfield developments. Increasing the estimated ultimate recovery is a key driver. To achieve this, the industry is relying more and more on utilizing subsea systems as part of this value creation, and the subsea part of a field development is getting more advanced. The number of installed subsea X-mas Trees today is about 800 on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, and approximately 5,000 on a worldwide basis. These numbers are forecasted to increase in the years to come, both with known technology and more complex developments utilizing new technology.
Subsea Controls Enabled by Production Systems and Automation
Today’s subsea production systems tend to go deeper, have reservoirs with higher temperature and pressure, be in fields located in regions with a colder climates (artic), include installation of subsea processing equipment (demand for more power), and are at longer distances from infrastructure. Traditional production control systems monitor processes with relatively slow process dynamics. Condition and performance monitoring systems may, in many cases, be monitoring systems with much faster dynamics.............
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