A subsea technology spin-off from Norwegian firm Fuglesangs has signed an agreement with Aker BP, Lundin and NOV to develop and test a full scale prototype of what is marketed as ‘the worlds most autonomous boosting system’.
The system will be qualified as part of The Research Council of Norway’s (“Forskningsrådet”) Demo2000 program and is suited for applications such as water treatment and water injection and possibly other “singlephase” liquid pumping applications. A future version will be developed for boosting of liquid hydrocarbons.
The fully modular Omnirise Boosting system aims to be the industry’s most flexible, low cost and reliable solution of its kind, Fuglesangs said. The most important features are that it shall be barrier-fluid less and have integrated variable speed functionality. This can reduce the need for topside equipment on platforms and rigs with 200 to 500 tons, compared to conventional seabed boosting systems, the company added.
This functionality is enabled by the Hydromag Drive Unit, which is developed in a separate development program with NOV and Innovation Norway.
The Hydromag Drive Unit is a patented combination of a high performance magnetic coupling, a hydrodynamic torque converter a (fixed) low-speed induction motor and an embedded cooling and control system.
According to Fuglesangs, the combined value of the Omnirise and Hydromag development programs is north of USD 10 million, with contributions of more than USD 2 million from The Research Council and Innovation Norway.