Building upon 25 years of experience in subsea production, the oil and gas industry has recently performed several technological leaps in subsea processing. Particularly, subsea compression systems will soon be operating at power levels above 10 megawatts, a fourfold increase beyond existing plants. Subsea pumping and compression have many advantages over traditional offshore production methodologies. They accelerate production and increase recovery rates, and, thus, life of field. Furthermore, they eliminate the need for a local surface production facility, which is especially attractive in geographic regions with challenging conditions. Processing subsea allows the system to exist in a more stable environment, which could open up oil and gas exploration in, for example, the Arctic, where seasonal ice makes a traditional facility impractical.
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