Dynamic study of a subsea processing system

This paper describes the simulation setup applied in an introductory study in connection with implementation of subsea processing equipment at an already operating gas and oil field. The primary aim of the subsea processing equipment is to increase the oil recovery, but it is also considered as an important technological step forward. A subsea separation and boosting station is planned installed. Several challenges need to be addressed before the implementation process, and simulations have therefore been performed to see how different types of control strategies can be introduced to overcome these challenges. The simulation model includes all the pipes and equipment from the wells to the topside first stage separators. The flow in the pipelines is modeled with the dynamic multiphase flow simulator OLGA 2000, whereas most of the processing equipment is modeled in Simulink. The focus of the paper is to demonstrate different ways of combining OLGA 2000 and Simulink, and how to divide the overall process model into sub-models in order to study local phenomena.