TechnipFMC has delivered its 100th Subsea 2.0 tree to UK-headquartered energy giant Shell, the company that placed the first order for the subsea product platform.
The subsea tree was manufactured, assembled, and tested at TechnipFMC ’s dedicated facility for Subsea 2.0 in Nusajaya, Malaysia, and will be used on Shell’s project in the Gulf of America.
The first Subsea 2.0 tree was installed during the development of Shell’s BC-10 field, offshore Brazil, in 2021.
“This is a proud moment for the worldwide team who have worked to make Subsea 2.0 the game-changing success it has become,” said Jonathan Landes , President of Subsea at TechnipFMC. “This year, we celebrated 30 years of partnership with Shell. They understood the benefits of Subsea 2.0 from the very beginning and we are delighted that they are marking this milestone—the 100th Subsea 2.0 tree—with us.”
According to Paulo Couto, now TechnipFMC’s Senior Vice President for Industrialization and Quality, who led the dedicated team for the development of Subsea 2.0, the technology was born from dissatisfaction with the status quo, as the industry has peaks and troughs, and TechnipFMC wanted to flatten those. The development began in 2015, with a vision to streamline subsea engineering through standardization and modularity.
The prototype of the vertical Subsea 2.0 tree was developed and built at TechnipFMC’s facility in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, then a horizontal prototype was manufactured at the company’s campus in Dunfermline, UK, followed by the in-the-well version, which does not sit on a tubing head, manufactured in Brazil.
“We looked at companies in other industries who rode out downturns, and saw they had go-to products that were industrialized. So we had to change the mindsets of people who were used to working project by project, both on our side and at our clients,” Couto said.
“Subsea 2.0 and our integrated Engineering, Procurement, Construction, and Installation (iEPCI) project methodology were really the start of the transformation journey TechnipFMC is on. We’re now known as the company that simplifies, standardizes, and industrializes using scalable, configurable technologies and methods.”
To meet demand for Subsea 2.0 trees, TechnipFMC established a dedicated manufacturing line at its facility in Nusajaya in 2022.
To date, the product platform is installed on projects in Australia, Brazil, the Gulf of America, Guyana, the Mediterranean, and West Africa.
“The advantage of Subsea 2.0 from a manufacturing perspective is that it’s a repeatable, configurable technology. Our production line, from manufacturing through to assembly and test, established a constant flow of product. That is not achievable with ETO solutions, where you could have challenges such as first articles and new part numbers which interrupt the flow,” Alberto Oliveira , Manufacturing Director at Nusajaya, said.
“With the line dedicated to Subsea 2.0, we output a higher volume of trees, while reducing the lead time by about a third, compared with ETO trees. Repeatability also has a positive impact on quality.”