Flowserve Announces New Ultra High Pressure Pumps to Help Increase Oil Field Capacity
Flowserve Corporation,a leading provider of flow control products and services for the global infrastructure markets, announced the successful start up of what Flowserve believes to be the highest pressure deep water injection centrifugal pumps in operation worldwide.
At the Ursa/Princess Waterflood project for Shell Oil Company, the pumps will inject high pressure water into the sea bottom field to force out otherwise unrecoverable oil. The project is expected to extend the life of the applicable Gulf of Mexico field by 10 years.
The new Flowserve pumps, the WIKO model, are designed to provide a 50 percent higher pressure increase over current offerings to allow more oil recovery than available from lower pressure pumps.
"This project continues the long relationship Flowserve has with Shell Oil Company, an alliance partner, in which we supply equipment for a wide variety of applications both upstream and downstream," said Tom Ferguson, President of the Flowserve Pump Division.
The Ursa/Princess Waterflood project required an evolutionary technology development that resulted in a new design and pump impeller arrangement for the heavy duty model WIK pump. The new design, model WIKO, has an opposed impeller rotor that allows much higher developed pressures than previously used in multistage pumps for the oil and gas industry.
"The successful startup of the pumps on the Ursa platform opens new opportunities for the oil industry to increase production from wells requiring ultra high injection pressures," continued Ferguson. "For many years, Flowserve has been a leader in developing new pump technologies to meet the needs of our oil industry customers. The innovative design of the WIKO is another example of how Flowserve continues to lead the industry in providing innovative oil pumping technologies."
The Ursa/Princess Waterflood project represents a significant investment by Shell and the other interest owners in one of the most prolific oil production areas in the Gulf of Mexico - the Ursa-Mars basin. It also demonstrates the potential for continued development of material oil and natural gas within the basin. The Ursa/Princess Waterflood project is one of the largest construction projects on an existing oil producing platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
"As the oil industry increasingly moves to locations where production is more difficult, we believe that Flowserve s leading technologies will play an increasingly significant and growing role," said Flowserve President and Chief Executive Officer Lewis Kling.
Source: Flowserve Corporation
