Oil major BP and Enpro Subsea have executed a global frame agreement aimed at providing an enhanced subsea architecture and smart standardization using Enpro’s patented Flow Access Module (FAM) technology.
Enpro Subsea said on Tuesday it had supplied the FAM technology to BP on the Kepler K3 project in the Gulf of Mexico, enabling project specific technologies to be added to BP’s standard subsea trees and manifolds, reducing project costs and schedule, to support BP in achieving sanction to first oil in less than 12 months.
According to Enpro, the patented Flow Access Module (FAM) technology enables fast track, capital efficient subsea tiebacks. It essentially creates an enhanced production ‘USB port’ within the jumper envelope. This allows the operator to use standard subsea trees and manifolds, with FAM and distributed manifold system providing life of field flexibility within the system design, delivering ‘Smart Standardization’ and the capability to maximize the ultimate recovery from subsea wells.
On the K3 project, BP used FAM to install multi-phase metering, water cut metering and sand detection at the Xmas tree end of a 3.2km single spur tieback in addition to hydrate remediation and flow assurance hydraulic intervention module adjacent to the manifold, removing the cost, risk and schedule associated with modifying standard hardware or adopting the dual flow loop alternative.
Following the success of the Kepler K3 project, Enpro and BP are now collaborating on follow up FAM projects, including BP’s Ariel 6 which is due to be installed later in 2019.
Ian Donald , managing director of Enpro Subsea said: “We appreciate the opportunity to support the BP team in providing innovative field development solutions which encapsulate the benefits of standard subsea hardware and FAM flexibility to reduce cost, risk and time to first oil. We believe Enpro’s enhanced production technologies are fully aligned with BP’s strategy of improving operating performance of existing and new assets with capital efficient solutions.”