Reassessment of Multiphase Pump on Field-Case Studies for Marginal-Deepwater-Field Devolopments

Abstract

Subsea-processing technology (SPT) is one of the frontier tools currently been explored by the oil and gas industry to open new opportunities and achieve more-effective exploitation of offshore oil and gas reserves. Exploration and production has moved into unlocking reserves that are less attractive and in difficult environments (e.g., marginal deepwater fields). These marginal fields are located remotely offshore and require one form of processing or another before they can be productive commercially. This paper focuses on the applicability of SPT employing multiphase pumps (MPPs) to develop marginal fields commercially. This was as a result of the technology selection established by a comparison of performances of several SPTs for effective development of marginal fields using tools [e.g., quality function deployment (QFD)], and evaluated further using an analytical hierarchical process (AHP), resulting in the most effective innovative SPT for marginal-field development. The result from these tools was validated further in their applications to real-life fields, and this is achieved by specific field-case simulation studies using the OLGA transient multiphase flow dynamic model program to commercially develop marginal fields.