Page 38: of Marine Technology Magazine (April 2005)

tic areas starts. Here, Subsea - to - Beach will be the most environmental friendly solution.

How is the low price for oil affecting your business?

In the short term, there is a limited effect, as we are in a late cycle business, meaning that development projects have advanced quite far when we start to supply the

Subsea equipment. In the longer term, we see that many operators are reconsidering their initial development plans — trying to find a lower cost development solution. This may affect the timing of some of the upcoming projects

Briefly describe your outlook for business (specifically

FMC’s Subsea business) in 2009 and beyond?

As described for the previous question, the 2009 business will be limited affected by the current situation. We do see some slippage of larger development projects — mainly due to re-evaluations of the development schemes.

However, we also see a number of smaller tie-back projects to existing infrastructure like satellite fields being devel- oped and tied back to an existing platform or FPSO. This may compensate for a lot of the delays in the larger devel- opment projects.

What's happening today that will affect your business for the next 10 years?

One important trend is the drive for better and better uti- lization of the reservoirs. Remember that on average from a Subsea field, only 30-35% of the in-place oil is recov- ered. Meaning 65-70% remains in the reservoir if no other means of active recovery improvements is applied.

Any technology that can improve this reservoir utilization will be important for the next 10-20 years. Also, the increased focus on cost, both development cost and oper- ating cost will drive towards more and more advances in remote operation and control. I believe this will drive towards more and more use of Subsea systems with high- er degree of processing on the seabed which will enable longer and longer transportation of produced oil and gas without final processing.

What would you name as the most significant technical advance during your career that has had the biggest impact to improve efficiency?

The fact that we have been able over the years to develop a reliable business where offshore platforms have been replaced with complete Subsea well systems is probably the most significant advances here. The line goes through a number of individual technologies that have all con- tributed to this major achievement. 38 MTR April 2009

Future development of more subsea separation and pro- cessing technologies can eventually lead to production from a Subsea field directly to the market — i.e. the "platform" is now put on the seabed. This means no off- shore personnel, no helicopter service, no offshore hotels, no offshore cantinas, no offshore gas fired power plants; the list goes on.

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