New heights below sea level Alexandre de Rougemont, MAN Energy Solutions, Switzerland, shows how new subsea compression systems are facilitating more sustainable and efficient production from deepwater gas fields.
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ubsea compression is helping oil and gas operators reduce energy use, increase efficiency and become more sustainable. The shift away from topside solutions reduces safety risks as well as the OPEX and CAPEX needed for the traditional manned production platforms. As a provider of compression technology solutions, MAN Energy Solutions is working on future subsea projects, safe in the knowledge that the world’s first subsea compressor system, at Equinor’s Åsgard gas field, has run for over 100 000 operating hours. 300 m beneath the surface of the North Sea, approximately 175 km west of Karmøy in Norway, the company’s subsea compression system is pushing gas and condensate from a
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wellhead to a semi-submersible processing platform some 40 km away. Operated by Equinor (formerly Statoil), the Åsgard project marked the world’s first deployment of a modular subsea compression technology, which emerged from a collaboration between MAN Energy Solutions and system solution provider Aker Solutions. Having now achieved well over 100 000 hours of cumulative operation and design performance figures of 99% availability after 6 years, the two subsea compressor systems support production at a significantly lower carbon footprint than a comparable topside installation. The beneficial characteristics of operating close to the wellhead mean the subsea compression
