coating to heat the lines. This «in-house» innovation is now undergoing a qualification program and has demonstrated a number of advantages over electric trace heating wires. These include the lighter weight and flexibility of the fabric that enable it to conform to any geometry, a more even distribution of heat, simplified repair, and low vulnerability to localized damage thanks to the many interconnections between the heating filamentsbsea processing - a term that refers to the full range of artificial lift and processing technologies carried out on the seafloor - new challenges such as difficult oils, long transport distances, «small» reservoirs and water depths in excess of 1,500 m have met their match.led the way into the strategic area of ??subsea processing with Pazflor, the first deep offshore development in the world to implement a subsea gas-liquids separation and subsea artificial lift of the liquids on a large scale. Three subsea separation units are installed under 800 m of water. Each one consists of a gravity gas-liquids separation module and two new-generation hybrid pumps. The pumps combine multiphase and centrifugal pumping technologies to boost the liquids up to the surface. These technological step-changes proved to be the key to cost-effective production of difficult oils: heavy (17 to 22 ° API gravity), viscous (3 to 10 cP) and contained in low-pressure reservoirs.the qualification of the first High Boost multiphase pump (developed by Framo) completed in 2011, Total achieved a major new milestone in subsea pumping of fluids from a deep offshore reservoir, by reconciling a powerful pump (150 bar) and the ability to handle fluids containing a large (60% ) volume of residual gas (Gas Volume Fraction, or GVF). Although the hybrid pumps developed for Pazflor were comparably powerful, they could not tolerate a high GVF. The Low Boost pumps on the market could tolerate a high GVF but were not sufficiently powerful (50 bar) for the Pazflor requirements.
Status report: Subsea pumps for all configurations
Thanks to its significant investments to develop a range of subsea pumping solutions, Total can avail itself of technologies suited to the varying needs of its portfolio of deep offshore assets for the next ten years:
for artificial lift of fluids right from the start of production in the case of heavy, viscous oils from reservoirs that are deeply buried or far from production hubs;
for maintaining plateau production on mature fields by supplying lift energy at the seafloor to maximize the recovery volume as the reservoirs decline.gas lift is also a critical technology for Total: gas compression on the seafloor becomes indispensable for transporting gas over long distances when reservoir pressure declines after several years of production. Total is involved in developing a field pilot for the? sgard project operated by Statoil in the North Sea (Norway). The pilot is slated for installation in 2015.liquid separation is another decisive step toward maximizing the recovery on mature oil fields. The quantity of produced water inevitably increases over the field s life. The purpose of subsea liquid-liquid separation is to remove that water from the hydrocarbons (oil and gas) rather than bring it up to the FPSO. In line with this concept, Total is studying a highly innovative configuration that cou...
