Subsea processing: the gamechanger

Subsea processing has the potential to massively reduce expenditure on offshore platforms by placing much of the hardware required to separate the well products on the seabed. The logical extension of the concept is that in some situations, subsea processing could remove completely the requirement for the offshore platform. Offshore wells mostly produce a cocktail of crude oil, gas, gas condensates, water and sand. Subsea processing encompasses a number of technologies such as subsea separation of the various well products, subsea pumping or compression to boost product flow to the surface and subsea power distribution to drive these processes.