Scenarios for Subsea Fields Decarbonization: A Mapping of Potential Power Schemes and Solutions

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to map the potential levers available to meet the ambitious commitments taken by the Oil & Gas industry to reduce its environmental impact. This paper focuses on subsea developments and the offshore power solutions that may allow to reduce associated scope 1 & scope 2 GHG emissions. As the usual power generation systems based on the use of gas or fuel turbines are a major source of emissions for offshore production, power generation and power sources represented an interesting field of investigations. A series of scenarios for subsea systems was defined, depending on the equipment to be powered (subsea trees, subsea processing, subsea compression…). On the other hand, a preliminary mapping of all potential power sources for an offshore field was built. Then, implementation of such power sources in various subsea schemes have been investigated and associated benefits, limitation and technology requirements have been discussed. The presented paper allows to get a quick and quite comprehensive overview of the potential schemes to be investigated to decarbonize power generation for subsea fields. It can be used as a high-level guide to start decarbonization investigations for specific study cases, depending on the available resources and development objectives for the field.