TechnipFMC
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Inside HISEP® – How TechnipFMC is taking dense gas separation and storage fully subsea
TechnipFMC was awarded the iEPCI™ contract for Petrobras’s Mero 3 HISEP® carbon capture project at the culmination of a six-year research and development effort. The new technologies delivered by that work enable the separation of CO2-rich dense gas to take place on the seabed. This move reduces greenhouse gas intensity and boosts production capacity on the topside because processing and storage instead happen subsea immediately after fluids are extracted from the reservoir.
In partnership with Petrobras, TechnipFMC developed four key subsea technologies: the separation station, the boosting station, high voltage power distribution, and the dense gas pump. The separation station receives mixed oil, natural gas, and CO2 from the production well. The mix flows into the inlet device and the gravity separator where oil is split from the CO2-rich dense gas. Oil is exported to the topside, while the dense gas is sent to the subsea boosting station where it is scrubbed, cooled and fed to the high-pressure dense gas pump before reinjection into the reservoir.