Wednesday 5 April 2017

Fuglesangs Subsea (FSubsea) is looking to forge an alliance with a major subsea integration contractor to commercialise its cost-cutting Omnirise pump technology that has now been qualified under a collaboration with major industry players.

The innovative Norwegian supplier has recently carried out a successful 6000-hour test of its so-called mini-booster under a technology development partnership with operators Shell, Statoil, Chevron and Total, as well as contractors National Oilwell Varco (NOV) and GE Oil & Gas.

FSubsea is touting an estimated cost saving of as much as 50% with the streamlined pump - intended to boost recovery from existing subsea wells - versus expensive traditional units as it eliminates the need for costly topsides equipment as well as umbilicals for barrier fluids due to a magnetic coupling.

A lot of the cost savings, he said, are due to the elimination of a large number of engineering hours that typically make up around 90% of project costs in terms of design, engineering, implementation and commissioning.

In a presentation at this week’s Subsea Valley event in Oslo, chief executive Alexander Fuglesang said the Omnirise technology was relevant for operators looking to squeeze more resources out of existing wells amid lower oil prices.

“Around 70% of offshore resources still remain in the seabed so there is a lot of value still sitting in the reservoir waiting to be tapped - and exploration drilling is expensive,” he said.

Fuglesang pointed out that independents that have recently acquired new field assets are particularly aggressive in assimilating such new technology to demonstrate they can extract more from these producing fields.

The technology also has potential application for subsea tiebacks of new fields, which have proliferated off Norway as a low-cost solution to develop finds near existing infrastructure, as well as for use in connection with lean, unmanned facilities due to a long maintenance interval of around seven years.

However, Fuglesang said the supplier was dependent on working with a big subsea integrator such as TechnipFMC or Aker Solutions as it seeks to put the pump into commercial operation, with a possible tie-up in the works that could be finalised shortly.

“There are exciting developments in that area and we hope to have something signed in the not too distant future,” he said.

“We are in discussions with all the major integrators and are making ourselves available to everyone, rather than one single contractor. The Omnirise is seen as complementary to their systems.”

His presentation highlighted the trend towards greater consolidation on the supplier side, given the recent mergers of Technip and FMC, and BakerHughes and GE, and he said a lot of smaller technology companies were also being swallowed up in this process.

“The corporate landscape is shifting and that is something we are following with interest,” Fuglesang said, though he stopped short of discussing whether his own company was a potential takeover candidate.

Meanwhile, the supplier is now looking to carry out tests of a larger Omnirise boosting system that would be double the size of the existing 15-tonne module and would multiply performance by a factor of 10.

FSubsea is collaborating with NOV on development of the latest unit and has gained financial backing both from the Research Council of Norway and Innovation Norway.

Two major operators, as yet unnamed, have also agreed to participate in the project, with testing work set to be carried out next year.

“A lot of finds off Norway have now passed the concept selection phase and we are working towards a specific field application for this technology,” Fuglesang said.