The Electric Subsea Field
23 November, 2011
The Electric Subsea Field
23 November 2011 North of England Branch Evening Meeting and AGM
Chairman Chris Williamson, BEL Valves
Sponsored by Cameron and Expro – Connectors & Measurements
Overview
With an industry goal of recovering more of the remaining oil and gas reserves, with lower costs, over longer distances, deeper water and less environmental risk, current Electro-Hydraulic field technology is a limiting factor. The need to eliminate these restrictions is becoming more and more of a requirement as current locations are ever increasingly remote.
The all electric field reduces these restrictions, although in past years there has been a slow but progressive movement towards the all electric subsea field. There is though an industry belief the market for the all electric subsea field will accelerate soon.
Presentations
All-Electric Subsea Production Control System (feedback and ongoing development)
Jan van den Akker, Product Manager Controls Systems, Cameron
With more than 3 years of successful operation of the first All-Electric Production Control System this technology continues to prove its advantages. The initial development targets have been met and valuable feedback has been received. While this pilot system further continues to gain field experience, the development of the 2nd generation DC All-Electric Subsea Production Control System is already in its final stages.
The 2nd generation DC All-Electric Subsea Production Control System represents state of the art technology in several aspects. High voltage transmission enables significant step-out distances. The available high bandwidth enables a transfer of large data amounts even for complex field architectures. Functionalities to control subsea actuator have been expanded. The already applied performance assessment approach enabling incipient failure detection has been maintained.
The presentation discussed the operational feedback of the first generation, the 2nd generation development targets, and introduced the 2nd generation System concept. The qualification strategy and results will be outlined. It also described the experience gained
during the development.
Subsea Power Electrical Connectors
Mike Friars, Product Manager (SpecTRON) & Neil Knight, Design Engineer, Expro – Connectors & Measurements
An introduction to Expro’s Subsea Power Electrical Connectors outlining the field proven ‘CE’ Controlled Environment principle which Expro’s connector technology is based. Expro’s connectors are highly field proven with over 100,000 connectors deployed all over the world using this patented design. Typical applications and the range of connectors available were also presented.
Also discussed was the technology and how Expro goes about designing, qualifying and testing our connectors to ensure they provide their customers with the highest quality and unquestionable reliability to allow them to operate in some of the harshest environments on the planet. All this safe in the knowledge knowing that once the connectors are deployed they can basically forget about them as Expro’s products supply high voltages and current to subsea equipment thousands of meters subsea.
Finally Expro’s current capabilities and what goes into producing high integrity subsea power connectors were outlined, and the presentation gave a summary of some of the project/track record Expro’s connectors have, and what makes Expro the undoubted market leaders in the subsea connector market.