OTC 12150

Fiber-Optic Connectors: An Enabling Technology for High-Noise Subsea Environments

Shadi Awwad / Ocean Design Inc.
Copyright 2000, Offshore Technology Conference
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2000 Offshore Technology Conference held in
Houston, Texas, 14 May 2000.
This paper was selected for presentation by the OTC Program Committee following review of
information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as
presented, have not been reviewed by the Offshore Technology Conference and are subject to
correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any
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Abstract
Ocean Designs Electro-Optical Wet-Mateable connectors
have been used in the offshore industry since 1996. One of
the most recent applications has been their use as an enabling
technology in the development of next-generation subsea
processing systems. Troll Pilots subsea separation and water
injection system, being developed by ABB Offshore Systems
for Norsk Hydro is a recent example.
The separation and water injection system utilize a
traditional gravity separator and a water injection pump
operating at 2 MW. The system is to be located between a
subsea gathering manifold and the Troll C platform.
Separated oil is routed back to the platform, and wastewater is
re-injected, either for pressure boost or into a disposal
formation.
The demand to use optical fiber communication in this
instance was driven by the need to reliably control the process
systems in proximity to the high-power machinery located on
the seafloor.
The Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)
generated by the high power, variable frequency drive to the
injection pump/motor, can interfere with electrical
communication systems, particularly where such a
communication line is in the same umbilical as the power lines
to the motor.
Fiber-optics offers a viable solution to communication
problems caused by EMI, as optical fiber is inherently
immune to EMI. In addition, the bandwidth advantage of
optical fiber permits real time communication with the subsea
control systems. Wet mate fiber-optic connectors permit the
necessary modular installation of such a system.
This paper details the benefits associated with utilizing
fiber-optics in subsea applications in general, and in subsea
separation and water injection systems in particular. Some
features of the wet-mate Electro-optical (hybrid) connector
will also be discussed.

Introduction
Since Ocean Designs hybrid wet-mate connectors were made
commercially available for the offshore industry in 1996, they
have been used in a number of applications where
conventional copper wire could not meet the needs for subsea
communication.
As a result of these connectors, the technical
communication advantages of optical fiber over electrical
(copper) wire have become available to the offshore oil
industry. These include large increases in bandwidth,
increased repeaterless step out distance, improved harsh
environment performance (downhole applications), and most
importantly an inherent electrical noise immunity for systems
that include high power or rotating machinery. Optical fiber
also may provide significant cost advantage for some
umbilical manufacturing and installation packages where its
use may result in umbilical cross section reduction.
Electrical noise immunity has been a particular benefit in
the Norwegian sector of the North Sea on the Norsk Hydro
Troll Pilot separation program, the worlds first full-scale trial
of subsea separation and water injection system.
Background
Ocean Design Inc (ODI) first developed wet-mate hybrid
connectors in association with Kvaerner Oilfield Products
(KOP) for a European Commission THERMIE R&D program.
The target of the program was to support the modular
installation of a subsea fiber-optic communication system
developed for applications such as the TOTAL Nautilus multiphase pump project. The Nautilus multi-phase project required
high data rate and EMI immune communication for a tieback
distance of 100 km.
The next hybrid wet-mate application was for a system that
required both high bandwidth and secure data communications
for a high accuracy gas flow meter. Optical fiber naturally
provides a high bandwidth (10 Gigabits/sec) communication
medium and inherently secure communications.
In the area of subsea communication, the hybrid wet-mate
connectors were used for the Norsk Hydro Troll Pilot subsea
separation program. This program has dual redundant fiberoptic communication architecture, with fiber in the umbilical
supporting two control modules on the separator and water
injection tree respectively. The control modules are linked
back to the umbilical termination head by low-stretch-hose-

FIBER-OPTIC CONNECTORS: AN ENABLING TECHNOLOGY FOR HIGH NOISE SUBSEA ENVIRONMENTS

type jumper assemblies terminated at each end with wet-mate

hybrid connectors. (Photo 1)
Hybrid wet-mate connector - How it all works
The wet mateable connectors use fiber-to-fiber physical
contact junctions, which deliver optimal optical performance.
The insertion loss is less than 0.5 dB per contact, equivalent to
any land based optical communication connectors.
Hybrid wet-mate connectors have taken the best elements
of a previous technology, such as oil-filled and pressurebalanced plug and receptacle housings, and combined them
with a unique sealing mechanism to maintain cleanliness of
the optical interfaces. Within both plug and receptacle oil
chambers, groups of contact junctions are aligned behind
cylindrical rubber face-seals. When mated, opposed plug and
receptacle seals press against each other forcing out the water
from between them. As the mating sequence continues the
opposed plug and receptacle seals roll in unison and transport
any debris trapped between them off to the side. The action
simultaneously causes clean, sealed, oil filled passages to open
between opposed plug and receptacle contact junctions.
Continuing the mating process, plug pins advance through the
passages to contact sockets within the receptacle. Demating is
just the reverse sequence. In the case of electrical circuits each
mated pin/socket junction has an individual (secondary) seal
within the common oil volume (Figure 1). The contacts are
never exposed to the outside environment before, during or
after mating. These hybrid connectors can house up to eight
channels, which may be any mix of single-mode or multimode optic, or 10 ampere electrical.
Hybrid wet-mate connector performance &
qualification program
These connectors have been designed to maintain their
original performance for more than 100 mating cycles under
pressure and in turbid conditions. For more information on the
connectors operational specifications refer to Table 1.
To demonstrate its operational capabilities the connector
underwent a series of challenging qualification programs,
performed internally and at independent test houses.5 The
connectors were put through thermal cycling and shock,
mechanical shock and vibration. Additionally, the connectors
were mated and demated 200 times at 10,000 PSI in turbid
seawater. The latter test is a challenge for any connector to
withstand let alone one fitted with optical contacts. A
summary of these qualification tests is shown in Table 2.
Over 500 hybrid connectors have been supplied to date,
demonstrating excellent operational performance and
reliability.
Optical Communications
Optical communication offers huge bandwidth improvements
over conventional electrical communication, as used in the
offshore oil industry to support subsea control and data
acquisition systems. Conventional control systems operate at
about 1200 baud with about 400 baud being used for control
system housekeeping. Consequently the rate at which

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production related data can be transmitted between subsea

control systems and topsides is extremely slow. This low data
rate is a consequence of using modems designed to operate
with twisted pair or combined power and signal
communication systems. Systems of these types inherently
offer Bit Error Rates (BER) of 1:106.
Optical fiber has a bandwidth capability of 10 Gbit/sec.
When configured for a subsea oil industry application,
bandwidths of 200 Mbit/sec can be supported over
transmission lengths of >100 km, without the need to include
repeaters in the transmission path. In addition to the increased
bandwidth, and the long step-out support, optical
communication also offers a significant improvement in data
integrity, with BER of 1:109 being available as standard.
For the Troll Pilot program, the available bandwidth
improvement is not being utilized, but the advantage in BER is
expected to significantly assist clean data transmission.
Although the optical fiber in the communication system has a
natural immunity to EMI, the control modules may still be
located in a high noise environment. This would require that
the remainder of the subsea controls and data acquisition
system be designed to operate in a high electrical noise
environment, in order to prevent data corruption before the
optical communication transmission occurs. Future
developments of fiber optic sensors and optical fiber backbone
bus type sensor control systems will provide inherently noise
immune sensor technologies.
Subsea oilfield developments incorporating highpower electrical machinery
Anywhere high power (>100 kW) is used subsea to drive
rotating machinery and where the primary control for this
machinery is provided by varying the topside power supply
that feeds the subsea equipment, there will be high levels of
electrical noise. This noise will be localized around electrical
machinery and the power umbilical that feeds it.
Any copper based communication medium which runs
through this high-noise environment, either by being run in the
power umbilical or being layed along side it, will degrade
communication performance. The use of optical fiber in this
environment immediately prevents signal quality degradation
due to EMI. However, its application is critically dependant on
high integrity, low loss optical connections that allow modular
system installation.
Ongoing developments
To date there have been five (5) development programs where
high power machinery and fiber optic communications have
been specified together for future subsea applications. These
are:
- Norsk Hydro Troll Pilot.
- ABB SUBSIS program.
- TOTAL Nautilus multi-phase pump.
- CoSWaSS subsea separator JIP (Joint industries Program)
- Petrobras SBMS 500 deep-water multi-phase pump
program.

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Troll Pilot program. One program where optical fiber has

been used to support the installation of a subsea system with
high levels of EMI is the Troll Pilot subsea separation
program. This program for Norsk Hydro ASA, who is acting
on behalf of the Troll C license partners (Statoil, Shell, Elf,
Conoco, and TOTAL) was developed in association with ABB
Offshore Systems as a consequence of Norsk Hydros
experience on the Troll field development. The oil produced
from the Troll field has had a high water cut even very early in
the development. Massive concrete and steel platforms were
necessary to support the water separation plant needed for the
expected production rate at the high water cut (Photo 2).
Therefore Norsk Hydro have taken a lead in the
development and installation of Subsea Separation
Technology. Legislation in the North Sea, particularly in the
Norwegian sector, sets very tight limits on the quality of
produced water that can be pumped to sea. This required that
the subsea separator system include a water injection pump for
disposal of the produced water into either a suitable disposable
formation or where appropriate for use in production boost
(Figure 2).
Norsk Hydros studies indicate that the noise level likely to
be generated by the 2 MW reinjection pump motor would
significantly decrease electrical communication performance.
The
degradation
would
arise
particularly
where
communication lines run in the same umbilical as the highpower motor supply.
There are two control modules located on the separator and
the injection tree respectively. One control module monitors
separator performance by looking at the water level in the
separator tank and various other parameters, and transmits
control signals to the topside speed control for the water
injection pump. The second control module controls and
monitors the water injection tree functions. Communication
with the control modules, particularly the water injection
control module, would be susceptible to data corruption if an
electrical (copper based) communication line ran in the same
umbilical as the variable frequency line to the pump.
Consequently, Norsk Hydro decided that the most suitable
means of guaranteeing high integrity communication with the
subsea system was to use optical fiber as the communication
medium.
This required optical fiber to run in the umbilical and
consequently, wet-matable hybrid connectors were needed to
allow the modular installation of the subsea equipment.
ABB SUBSIS Program. The SUBSIS (Subsea Separation
and Injection System) concept is based on the removal of bulk
water from the well stream. The system treats the water either
for disposal to sea or for re-injection. SUBSIS consists off a
16m-square, 6m-high structure, steel framework that houses
powerful pumps and a settling tank (separator) that is intended
to work at depths of up to 1,200 meters (Figure 3). Satellite
wells can also be tied at low cost to augment an older
platform, making partially depleted reserves more
economically viable.

The system uses a high voltage, extendable to 36 kV,

subsea matable connector (MECON HV) to drive the water
injection pump6. Many of SUBSIS elements were utilized on
the Troll Pilot program. Like Troll Pilot, SUBSIS will rely
on optical fiber as the solution to guaranteeing communication
integrity in that environment.
TOTAL Nautilus multi-phase pump. In November 1999,
TOTAL introduced multiphase pumps on the Dunbar platform
located on the UK continental Shelf 400-km northeast of
Aberdeen. The pumps are designed to increase production by
enabling simultaneous liquids pumping and gas compression
of the commingled wellhead effluents. The two multiphase
pumps, 4.5 MW each, deliver a flow of 40,000 barrels of
liquids and 3 million cubic meters of gas per day. This is a
step towards the Nautilus subsea pump development program
which is marinizing this equipment for subsea installation.
Once installed, the communication with the subsea system will
be carried out using optical fiber lines.
CoSWaSS subsea separator. The objectives of the
CoSWaSS (Configurable Subsea Water Separation System)
JIP are to remove bulk water from multiphase flow at the
subsea wellhead for disposal via re-injection into the reservoir.
This is to be achieved by a technology development project
sponsored by a wide group of operators, focusing on subsea
water separation, driving technology forward, demonstrating
what is possible to the industry, and satisfying the
Consortiums needs for technology to suit deepwater and high
throughput applications for year 2000 and beyond.
The participants include Amerada Hess, BP, Chevron, Elf,
Mobil, Norsk Agip, Saga, Statoil and Texaco.
In all configurations, the high power subsea equipment,
has been identified as requiring fiber-optic communication
and, as the system will be installed as a series of major
modules (Umbilical, Separator and Water Injection modules),
the fiber-optic communication system will require optical wet
mate connectors to permit system hook-up.
Petrobras SBMS 500 deep-water multi-phase pump
program. This program rated for use in 1000 meter-deep
water, uses a multiphase flow pump to transfer the production
fluid from the wellhead or manifolds directly to SPUs
Stationary Production Units located remotely from the pump.
The system uses fiber-optic lines to communicate with the
control module on the pump manifold. The optical fiber over
which the communication occurs is located in a separate
umbilical providing the high-power feed to the motor.
Conclusion
Hybrid wet-mate connectors are proving to be a critical
technology in the development and subsequent installation of
high-power subsea systems.
The use of fiber-optics, primarily for EMI immunity, has
significantly improved the quality of communication with
equipment of this type. In addition, the inclusion of optical

FIBER-OPTIC CONNECTORS: AN ENABLING TECHNOLOGY FOR HIGH NOISE SUBSEA ENVIRONMENTS

fiber in integrated service umbilicals, where the optical fiber

replaces copper wire for communication, may result in major
cost reduction in the manufacture and installation of the
umbilical and the Umbilical Termination Assembly (UTA),
particularly for deep water applications.
New subsea technology development, driven by the need
to improve capital expenditure and long term operating cost,
will incorporate optical fiber systems in many instances, either
for communication or direct sensing applications.
These systems initially located on the sea floor, will in
time migrate to the downhole environment. Consequently the
ongoing development of fiber-optic connectors and allied
equipment will be critical to the future installations, both on
the sea floor and downhole.
Acknowledgments
We thank ABB Offshore Systems for their support and for
providing the technical data included in this paper, and Norsk
Hydro for permitting the discussion of the Troll Pilot Program.
Nomenclature
dB = decibel
G= acceleration due to gravity, 9.81 meters/sec
IR= insulation resistance (ohms)
PSI = pounds per square inch
VDC= volts, DC
References
1.
2.

3.
4.

5.
6.

ABB Offshore Technology: The ABB SUBsea Separation

and Injection System
Barlow, S.M.: Multiple Channel Wet-Mateable ElectroOptical Connectors: Qualification Testing, paper OTC
8483 presented at the 1997 Offshore Technology
Conference, May 5-8.
Carins, J.: Hybrid Wet-Mate Connectors: Writing the Next
Chapter, Sea Technology (97).
High, G., and P.J. Wright, Subsea Fiber-Optic
Communications: Marinizing Optical, Opto-Electrical
Communication Components For Production Control, Data
Acquisition of Subsea Completions For Offshore Oil
Industry, Sea Technology, May 1997.
Barlow, S.M.: Advances in undersea connector technology
improve efficiency, Lightwave, October 1999.
Ostergaard I., ABB Offshore Technology: MECON, a High
Voltage Subsea Connector, OTC-99 paper.

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Photo 1: Hybrid Jumper Assembly used on the Troll Pilot Separation System.

Photo 2: Troll C Concrete Anchored Semi-submersible, from which the

Troll Pilot installation is controlled.

FIBER-OPTIC CONNECTORS: AN ENABLING TECHNOLOGY FOR HIGH NOISE SUBSEA ENVIRONMENTS

Figure 1: Optical wet-mate connectors Step-by-Step mating sequence

Figure 2: Schematic of the subsea separation and water injection system

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Figure 3: ABB SUBSIS (Subsea Separation and Injection System)

FIBER-OPTIC CONNECTORS: AN ENABLING TECHNOLOGY FOR HIGH NOISE SUBSEA ENVIRONMENTS

Table 1: Major Operational Specifications for the Hybrid Wet-mate Connector

Property
Pressure rating
Temperature rating
Optical fiber
Typical insertion loss
Typical return loss
Maximum current
Maximum voltage
Insulation resistance
Number of circuits
Mate/de-mate cycles

Specifications
10,000 psi
-10 to +60C (tested down to 25C)
125-micron singlemode or multimode
<0.5 dB
>30 dB
10 amps/circuit
1000V DC
>1 gigaohm, circuit-to-circuit and circuit to ground
Up to 8
> 100

Table 2: Major Qualification Tests for the Hybrid Wet-mate Connector

Test
Duration
Conditions
Mechanical shock
6 cycles
sine @ 18 msec, 30G
Vibration
+30 min
20-80 Hz, 4G, 3 axes, resonant search plus 2-hr hold
at frequencies
Hydrostatic
100 cycles
0 to 8000 psi
pressure
Mate/de-mate
100 cycles
0 to 8000 psi
under pressure @
low temperature
Burial
1 cycle
Buried 1 m in sand/silt, removal cleaning, and demating
Thermal limits
7 days
-10 to +140F
Thermal shock
Plunge
+140 to +32F and 10 to +32F
Turbid-tank mating
200 cycles
0 to 10,000 psi, 1.5% solids, seawater

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