Norske Shell successfully finished a multiyear test of a subsea natural gas compression system with a full subsea power supply, transmission, and distribution system supplied by GE Oil & Gas for a pilot on Ormen Lange field offshore Norway.
The pilot was designed to test a full-scale integrated subsea compression system in submerged conditions with gas. Norske Shell ran the pilot with its partners Petoro AS, Statoil ASA, DONG Energy, and ExxonMobil Corp. The pilot started in 2011 at Shell’s testing station at Nyhamna, Norway.
GE said the system enables operators to conduct gas compression on the seabed, reducing the need to provide additional power generation from nearby offshore platforms.
Technologies that were successfully tested included a 12.5-Mw vertically orientated centrifugal compressor, subsea switchgear, subsea variable speed drives, and subsea uninterruptible power supply.
Ormen Lange, producing since 2007, is among the largest gas fields in development on the Norwegian Sea’s continental shelf. The field is 120 km northwest of Kristiansund (OGJ Online, Nov. 30, 2007).
