Aker Solutions and Statoil awarded ONS innovation award

Thursday, Aug 30, 2012

Aker Solutions and Statoil have been awarded the ONS Innovation Award for the Åsgard subsea gas compression system.

“This technology has the potential to change offshore gas field developments worldwide. With the forecast growth of subsea developments, subsea compression will become widespread, having even more impact as projects move into deeper waters further from shore. We are very pleased to be awarded this prestigious award,” says Åsmund Bøe, chief technology officer at Aker Solutions.

The ONS Innovation Award, which was first presented in 1982, recognises the crucial importance of cutting-edge products and solutions. Today, the 2012 award was given to Aker Solutions and Statoil acknowledging subsea compression technology.

In 2015 the world’s first subsea gas compression station will go on stream in the Åsgard field offshore Norway. This will boost falling gas pressures from the Midgard and Mikkel satellite reservoirs, allowing stable production to continue and enabling an additional 280 million barrels of oil equivalent to be recovered. The project is operated by Statoil and delivered by Aker Solutions.

Subsea compression improves gas recovery and provides many benefits compared to the alternative of installing a new platform. Further benefits include reduced investments and operating costs, a smaller environmental footprint and safer operations.

Reservoir pressure in producing gas fields falls over time, causing gas output to decline. For production to continue and maximise recovery from the fields, gas pressure must be raised or production will cease.

Until now the solution has been to install gas compressors on an existing platform, or to build a new manned compression platform. A more cost-effective alternative would be to install the compressors on the seabed, near to the wellheads to improve recovery, while reducing overall capital and operating costs.

For the past 30 years this has been a major goal for the industry, as it has sought to transform the concept into reality. The Åsgard subsea gas compression project will be the first in the world to attain this goal. Two state-of-the-art 11.5MW subsea compressors will be installed on the field in 2015, avoiding the need to install a new large semi-submersible platform.

Source: Aker Solutions

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