Enpro Subsea has sparked interest in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore West Africa with its enhanced subsea sampling and injection (ESSI) hub.

The Aberdeen-based company will be installing two of the systems for a major international operator on a greenfield project in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in the third quarter this year. The system will include a multiphase flowmeter, a water cut meter and sand detector.

Enpro is also delivering two hubs to a large independent operator offshore Ghana in the second quarter.

The ESSI provides a universal 'open standard' interface which can be deployed at multiple locations including at the jumper hub, pipeline end termination or manifold.

It is a safe access port for well or pipeline operations and is either retrofitted into existing subsea hardware or considered as part of a new field development strategy.

Located 'off the tree', the ESSI is independent of all major subsea hardware decisions, thereby enabling fast-track procurement.

The system is also configurable for single vessel operations, which significantly lowers the economic threshold of deepwater well control, scale squeeze and acid treatments.

Ian Donald, managing director of Enpro, told SEN, “The flow access module acts like a USB outlet from the tree. Once you have that access point put in using one set of isolations, you can then do multiple services. That is one of our key differentiators.

“It doesn’t interfere with the design of the tree so you can use a standard tree and it gives you long term flexibility. You can put this in and then throughout the life of the field you can configure it for what you need.

“What that enables you to do on a multiphase meter is to do your fluid sampling or fluid intervention or well kill. We have just been asked about multiphase pumping as well.

“Another competitive advantage is that we think we can install it with one vessel because the system is small and light. This potentially eliminates a second vessel because sometimes you have to have a pumping vessel and a workboat alongside.”

Donald said Enpro has agreed Memoranda of Understanding with GE Oil & Gas, Baker Hughes and Technip to globalise the technology in different regions.

“That allows us to have global reach from here in Aberdeen. It is in the spirit of collaboration. Just now we’re developing our 15k intervention system for deepwater in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa. That is going to be ready this year,” he added.

Decom ready

Enpro has also developed a plug technology technology for testing and extracting oil during decommissioning projects. It is being used on a major decommissioning project in the North Sea.

Enpro, formerly known as Cansco Subsea, was asked by Shell in 2014 to develop a decommissioning system to allow for the safe extraction of residual or 'attic' oil from the gravity base structure structure on Brent Delta.

The scope included the development of a narrow bore drilling and anchoring hub onto which dual isolation fluid sampling/monitoring & pumping assemblies are secured.

Multiple samples will be taken from each cell or tank for analysis. The system will be designed to be deployed on multiple cell locations and transfer attic fluid to a single export tank.

Donald added, “The reason it moves the game on is that you can make the tooling ROVable. It allows you to fly it into place underneath the platform. It is a piece of technology giving you the anchor and the access point and there is the opportunity to leave the instrumentation there for long term monitoring.”