Cost of building and operating an expensive offshore platform can be saved if the gas treatment facilities are placed on the seabed. Aker Solutions developed the world's first subsea compression system, in operation since 2015. Having this technology in mind, an advanced subsea CO2 separation and reinjection concept is under development by Aker Solutions. The concept will facilitate increased recovery rates from oil fields by CO2 injection in the oil reservoir (CO2 flooding). The continuous separation and reinjection of CO2 from associated gas will be performed subsea with minimized need for gas pre-treatment and the large processing modules used in today's topside systems.
In COMPMEM phase 1, several membrane qualities have been tested at SINTEF in the lab scale at the conditions relevant to subsea gas separation – within the broad range of temperature, pressure and CO2 content in the feed gas. Taking into account the environment, in addition to the membrane gas separation performance, compatibility of the polymeric membrane and potting materials to acidic water and hydrocarbon condensate was tested.
In COMPMEM phase 2, based on the results from the lab scale test, the best membrane qualities will be tested in small industrial scale. Utilizing existing pilot scale units, the pilot scale membrane test facility will be built at Tiller Multiphase Flow Laboratory. The results from these tests will be used to validate the models developed in the project which will be then used for optimizing the subsea separation conditions and CO2 mass balance and further design of the subsea CO2 separation station.
Project partners:
- Aker Carbon Capture (coordinator)
- SINTEF
- Total
- CCP (CO2 Capture Project with partners BP, Chevron, Petrobras)
- Equinor
- Pertamina