Subsea processing has huge tendency of optimising recovery by water/gas injection

and also reduces

development cost by transferring some of the traditional topside uid processing to
the seabed.
In addition, it saves space on topside facilities, as water separation and sand
treatment processes
can be carried out on the seabed, debottlenecking the processing capacity of the
topside facility. By
removing undesirable constituent of production at the seaoor, required
transportation through ow
lines and risers to the facility on the water's surface for further reinjection is
avoided. As shown in
the
gure below.
1

Improved Reservoir Productivity: A fundamental bene

t of seabed processing (separation and
liquid pumping) is improvement in pressure drawdown as a result of reduction in
back pressure and
increase in reservoir pressure through water reinjection. This results in increase
in production rates
and improved oil and gas recovery. The use of a Single Phase pump overwhelms the
static back-
pressure of the uid column along the production line from the seaoor to the
surface, while also
avoiding it avoids undue pressure drops and upsurge of multiphase ow.
Deepwater and Long-Distance Tiebacks: Subsea separation and liquid pumping allows
easy
ow of produced and processed hydrocarbon over a long step out distance, and in deep
water applica-
tion. This is as a result of the transportation of produced uid by a mechanical
means (use of pump)
rather than full dependent on reservoir pressure for pumping. Subsea liquid pumps
are currently
available for most applications, while separator gas can ow long distances under
natural pressure.
As large capacity production advances are made, subsea power supply and compressor
systems, sub-
sea gas compression becomes a viable option, allowing reduced pipeline size and
even longer transport
distances.
Flow Assurance: Subsea processing can provide a cost resolution to ow assurance
related chal-
lenges. The subsea processing system in the
gure below shows that the di#erent phases of the well
stream is separated and conveyed in di#erent pipelines, to eliminate multiphase ow
and related
problems. Although the separated gas entering the ow line is saturated with water,
which still raises
the concern of hydrate formation, the volume of water can however be very much
predictable, and
too little to trigger hydrate formation. It also disquali
es the need to over inject inhibitor to mitigate
water slug, which is naturally avoided when liquid and gas ows in di#erent ow
lines, so as to allow
the use of the more environmentally friendly inhibitor like glycol that can be
readily recovered and
regenerated at the host platform.
2

Topside Facilities Limitations: Produced uid gets to the platform facilities

already processed
and separated into various phase in the case of subsea processing which reduces the
need for large
slug catchers and separators. Degassed oil and water can go through subsequent
separations on the
seabed with the produced water re-injected back to boost production, thus
eliminating the need for
surface water treatment with a reasonable reduction in overall power requirement.
Unmanned, Safe and Minimum Facilities Developments: Aside the primary bene
t of im-
proved productivity and recovery, subsea processing also ensures oil and gas
development with mini-
mum production enables huge reduction in personnel requirement for operations. It
ensures increased
safety of personnel and environment as the facility is located far from the
personnel. [Choi and Wein-
garten, 2007]