Oil major Shell has completed system testing of the Ormen Lange subsea compression pilot in Norway, technology provider GE Oil & Gas has said.
GE says it is the world’s first subsea gas compression system with a full subsea power supply, transmission and distribution system. GE had already revealed to OE that it has qualified a subsea power distribution system - read our August issue or here to find out more.
The Ormen Lange Pilot was a first of its kind and was designed to test a full scale integrated subsea compression system in submerged conditions with real hydrocarbons.
It has been run by Norske Shell and its license partners Petoro, Statoil, Dong and ExxonMobil since 2011 at Shell’s test facility at Nyhamna in Norway where the gas from the Ormen Lange field reaches shore.
While Shell decided to halt plans for subsea compression at Ormen Lange in 2014, citing costs and reservoir data, the firm has continued assessing options for the field, including a subsea compression project on a 120km stepout, but also subsea separation, a wet gas compression solution, and floating facilities. The firm says it is very much still looking at its options.
Ormen Lange was discovered in 1997 and has been producing since 2007, in 600-1100m water depth in the southern part of the Norwegian Sea, about 130km northwest of Kristiansund.
GE has been a key collaboration partner with Shell in the development of the compression system and supplied a number of the technologies to the project, including GE Oil & Gas’ Blue-CTM compressor – a centrifugal compressor specifically designed for subsea - and the world’s first subsea power supply, transmission and distribution system.
The system enables operators to conduct gas compression on the seabed, reducing the need to introduce additional power generation on nearby offshore facilities.
Sitting at the heart of the compressor is the electrical package provided by GE’s Power Conversion business and due to GE’s expertise in electrical engineering, the high-speed motor and the high power drive provided are capable of operating hundreds of meters below the sea level reliably.
Neil Saunders, President & CEO, Subsea Systems & Drilling, GE Oil & Gas, said: “We are very proud of what we have achieved in partnership with Shell. We leveraged the GE Store, using our domain expertise and heritage across the GE portfolio, including rotating machinery, power electronics, high voltage designs and subsea production systems. Today, we are designing the next generation of compact and modular subsea compression systems to unlock new possibilities for power and processing worldwide”.
The GE technologies that were tested as part of the Ormen Lange Pilot include the 12.5MW Blue-CTM subsea compressor, subsea power supply, transmission and distribution system, subsea switch gear and variable speed drives, subsea uninterruptible power supply (UPS), connectors and electric actuators. The system also had a Naxys acoustic leak detection system.
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