Fortune has not been entirely kind to ABB Offshore AS out at Troll C platform. The contractor's potentially revolutionary subsea separation and injection system, Subsis, undergoing a pilot test phase at the Norsk Hydro AS-operated Troll field in the Norwegian North Sea, was to have been brought on line last summer. But it failed after 2 "successful" hr due to a malfunction caused by water seeping into one of the unit's high-voltage connectors.
That the high-priced Subsis prototype, the first step toward ABB's "Zero Surface" futurist vision of offshore developments totally housed on the seabed, was undone by microscopic cracks in the connector's composite molding was, though disappointing for ABB, certainly not catastrophic. Subsis is new technology in its truest sense-and during the time that it was up and running, testing a capacity rate of 60,000 b/d, it produced water with only 140 ppm of oil.
Undaunted development
Asle Solheim, head of ABB's subsea business unit in Norway, has no doubt that Subsis will become a touchstone for future field developments because, he said-reassured by a further 6 months' redesign and testing work- "the system is proven."
There have been lessons learned, he accepts, linked to the materials needed for such ultrahigh-voltage systems and the time needed to properly qualify new technology of this avant-garde type. Wiser for the experience, ABB plans to reinstall the upgraded unit at Troll C this August.
Undaunted by the difficulties Subsis presented, Solheim says Sepsis-ABB's subsea electrical power distribution system, including pumps and gas compressors-is now midway through endurance testing and qualification at Framo Engineering AS's facility in Bergen. The contractor is now searching out a pilot field installation for this key component in its plan to "change the face" of the subsea industry.
Beyond this, ABB recently announced that it is fast moving toward launching a cooperative project with the likes of BP PLC, Chevron Corp., and Kvaerner AS-using the working name of the Seafloor Process Collaboration-to formalize the full suite of kit required to produce, process, and transport 20,000 b/d of hydrocarbons some 100 km to shore.
An August-September start date is set for SPC, according to Solheim, with the door still open "for partners to fill certain technology gaps."
Greater operator onus
The trials experienced by ABB with Subsis on Troll C tell a not uncommon tale of a contractor's R&D doggedness when traveling in uncharted territory. But Solheim reserves his praise for Hydro, which he says "shows the need for operators to risk technology setbacks to advance the industry at large." Too great an onus for the research into and the development of those groundbreaking technologies that will drive the oil and gas industry's progress, he believes, continues to fall to the contractor.
Fields under conceptual development, including the giant Ormen Lange gas field in the Norwegian Sea, "will be totally dependent on this [type of technology]," according to Solheim-and without it, by implication, may be held up from becoming producing assets.
The makeup of the SPC cooperative-two operators, two contractors-may well become a model of the way forward, though this too will depend on the division of labor and finance on this radical project, as much perhaps as its outcome.