Offshore staff
OSLO, Norway – Aker Solutions and FSubsea will establish a new company, FASTSubsea, to help offshore operators increase oil recovery faster and more efficiently.
According to Aker Solutions, although multi-phase subsea pumping technology has recognized potential for boosting oil recovery rates by more than 20%, the associated cost, space limitations, and complexity of some of the solutions have limited the applications.
Currently multi-phase pumps are installed in fewer than 30 of the world’s 1,500+ offshore fields, the company claimed.
FASTSubsea will combine Aker Solutions’ multi-phase hydraulic technology withFSubsea’s Hydromag to create what they describe as the world’s first ‘topside-less’ multi-phase boosting system.
The pump-module solution under development by FASTSubsea is said to reduce typical capex by half and allow subsea boosting at fields where there is no available topsides space.
Getting more out of existing wells will also reduce carbon dioxide emissions per barrel, they added.
FSubsea was formed inOslo in 2013 as a spin-off from Fuglesangs Group. Since then the company has manufactured more than 40 pumps that are currently operating in deepwaters and in 2017 won the OTC Spotlight on New Technology Award for its Omnirise boosting system.
Conventional multi-phase systems involve the installation of large amounts of topsides equipment on a platform or FPSO, including electric variable-speed drives and supply systems for barrier fluid hydraulic oils.
There can also be the need for several kilometers of hydraulic umbilicals between the pumps and the platform, which increases the engineering cost.
FASTSubsea’s pump-module integrates features of Hydromag, including what is said to be the world’s most powerful permanent magnetic coupling with an embedded hydrodynamic variable-speed function, with Aker Solutions’MultiBooster semi-axial impeller design.
The system has a built-in variable speed function and is barrier-fluid-less, and therefore reduces capex cost by up to 50%, the partners claimed.
Aker Solutions and FSubsea will each hold 50% of the shares in FASTSubsea. Alexander Fuglesang will be managing director, and Bastiaen van der Rest will be technology and operations manager.
At the same time, both companies will continue to market theirOmnirise, LiquidBooster and MultiBooster product ranges.
04/10/2019
