Getting a new product out into the market is—as we all know—a time- and labor-intensive task that can bring great reward if successful. In a way, it is like watching a toddler take those first few steps, where they go from crawling on all fours to tottering on two before sprinting off toward teen-dom. The same could be said for the subsea market.

Since taking its initial steps in 1961 with Shell’s installation of the first subsea production tree in the Gulf of Mexico’s West Cameron Field, subsea technology has evolved to where phrases like “subsea factory” show real promise of becoming reality. It is an evolution driven by technology advances, attractive oil prices and declines in production seen in maturing fields that have pushed operations farther offshore into deeper, more remote waters.

The need for subsea solutions will only continue to grow. Studies indicate that the number of subsea oil wells is expected to double by 2020, with a majority of these wells being in the deepwater, according to the Subsea Production Alliance.

The alliance was formally introduced at this year’s Offshore Technology Conference. It joins the expertise in the design and installation of subsea production and processing systems of Aker Solutions with the well completions and artificial lift technology knowledge of Baker Hughes.

The structure of the alliance provides flexibility for each company to offer any products and services to design the best solution for the customer’s production challenges, according to a release. Improving the rate of hydrocarbon recovery from deepwater wells—which have historically delivered single-digit rates—is one of many goals of the alliance.

To accomplish this, the alliance will bring to market fully integrated in-well and subsea production systems—like horizontal electric submersible pump (ESP) systems and ESP-ready subsea trees—that are engineered to work in unison to improve recovery in deepwater developments while reducing installation and production costs.

In a Hart Energy Offshore Connect exclusive, Alliance General Managers Svenn Ivar Fure of Aker Solutions and Brage Johannessen of Baker Hughes shared with viewers their insights into the future of the subsea market and the direction the Alliance is taking to tackle the challenges of subsea production.

“The alliance has many goals. One of our primary objectives is to put an electric submersible pump in any subsea well out there in the entire world,” Fure said. “Our ultimate objective is to unlock the subsea market for ESPs and thereby increase the subsea market itself. It is a really powerful objective because right now, there are just a handful [of ESPs] functioning subsea.”

Other areas of development include improving the interfaces of subsurface trees to make them friendlier to control lines, according to Johannessen. These interfaces provide access points for control lines to be inserted to control completions components downhole.

“We’ve discussed many times the interfaces on a subsurface tree, where traditionally our two company segments of the industry work in isolation,” he said. “It’s a clear area of optimization for us and gives us the ability to improve the architecture surrounding that interface.”

From a water depth of 17 m (55 ft) in West Cameron more than 50 years ago to today’s depths of thousands, the fleet-footed evolution of subsea technology is set to carry the industry for decades to come.

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