Date: May 5, 2015

Topic: Subsea Membrane Water Treatment
Torbjørn Hegdal, Business Development Manager, Seabox

Treating seawater on the seabed for injection into reservoirs will deliver a new and significant capability to the oil & gas industry’s expanding subsea toolkit. This presentation will describe the latest developments in the Subsea Water Intake & Treatment (SWIT) system and its ability for long lasting production on the seabed of water for any Improved/Enhanced Oil Recovery application. In addition to ‘normal’ waterflooding, adding membrane treatment can adjust the chemical composition of injection water to suit specific demands of any reservoir. The injection of low salinity water in many reservoirs has shown significant increases in recovery factor of the oil in place, whereas removal of sulphate ions from injected seawater will prevent scaling and and provide the ultimate protection against reservoir souring.

This presentation will discuss the findings of a 2012-2013 JIP that showed that the SWIT technology, when coupled with membrane systems, has the ability to deliver ‘tailormade’ water quality, reliably and for several years without intervention directely on the seabed. The success of this JIP has raised enthusiasm for a technology qualification program with several companies. This qualification program has begun, and the presentation will also address the methods used by Seabox to identify and close technological gaps in the SWIT system.

This presentation is based on paper OTC-25833, “Subsea Membrane Water Treatment Progresses Toward Application” which will be delivered at the 2015 Offshore Technolgoy Conference. Please visit http://www.sea-box.no/ for more info on Seabox.