Centrilift, Shell partner on deepwater seabed boosting technology
Posted: 4 January 2007
Shell has awarded Centrilift, a division of Baker Hughes Incorporated, the contract for two major deepwater seabed production boosting systems for subsea projects – one in the Gulf of Mexico and one offshore Brazil.
This marks the first project using electrical submersible pumping (ESP) systems in seabed vertical booster stations in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Shell Perdido Regional Development project in the Gulf of Mexico includes five enhanced run life ESP vertical booster stations with Centrilift supplying the ESP equipment as well as engineering design, qualification and testing services.
Each system installation will include a liquid/gas separator to maximize ESP performance.
The vertical booster stations will handle production from three subsea satellite fields (Great White, Silvertip and Tobago) tied back to the Perdido spar host facility.
This will be the deepest spar production facility in the world, moored in approximately 8,000 feet of water.
The booster stations will be located directly beneath the spar and tied to the platform via top tensioned risers. First production is anticipated around the turn of the decade.
The first phase of the Shell Brazil BC-10 deepwater project offshore Brazil includes six enhanced run life ESP vertical booster stations, located approximately five miles from the host FPSO, with Centrilift supplying the ESP equipment as well as engineering design, qualification and testing services.
Four of the systems include liquid/gas separators.
Two do not include separators, but employ specially-designed Centrilift multi-phase fluid pumps.
The BC-10 project encompasses the Ostra, Abalone and Argonauta fields. The BC-10 block is in the Campos Basin in approximately 5,250 to 6,250 feet of water, 75 miles southeast of the city of Vitoria, Brazil. First oil is scheduled around the turn of the decade.
ESP booster systems offer several advantages over alternatives methods, including deployment from vessels of opportunity, redundant system designs to maximize run time and some configurations use existing infrastructure to house the systems.
All of these features provide operators economic solutions to maximize production from subsea fields.
Centrilift, a division of Baker Hughes, is a leading provider of electrical submersible pumping (ESP) systems and services to the global petroleum industry. Centrilift also designs, manufactures and markets progressing cavity pumping (PCP) systems and surface pumping systems.
Baker Hughes is a leading provider of drilling, formation evaluation, completion and production products and services to the worldwide oil and gas industry.
Posted by Richard Price, Editor EnergyME.com
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