The GRONDIN field offshore Gabon/West Africa is producing oil for ELF AQUITAINE through subsea wellheads controlled by an electrohydraulic control system supplied by MATRA.

The installation completed in June 1979 and an experimental maintenance operation of a control pod, 6 months later, have been carried out without any diver assistance. The main features of the control system are: Multiplex Electrohydraulic Control, subsea hydraulic pumps, subsea diverless electrical conductive and hydraulic connections.

Due to extensive quality control and test programmes, the Field operations have been achieved without any trouble and in accordance with the Foreseen Schedule.

The present paper describes the control system, the development programme and the results of this experimentation.

Keywords:
subsea production equipment, connector, control system, Upstream Oil & Gas, xmas tree, procedure, subsea system, multiconnector, central control block, module
Subjects:
Offshore Facilities and Subsea Systems, Subsea production equipment
Copyright 1980, European Offshore Petroleum Conference and Exhibition
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