BP’s New Chapter for Subsea Boosting

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The most important advance in subsea boosting may not be a new pump or breakthrough in processing, but improved predictability and reliability.

Technology can make or break a project. Over the decades, operators have refined subsea boosting technology to improve reservoir drainage. An early stepping stone was the commercial deployment of multiphase boosting offshore Norway in the 1990s, followed in the 2000s by deepwater installations and applications for long-distance tiebacks, such as BP’s King project in the Gulf of Mexico, which has since been renamed the Gulf of America. That deployment, then both the deepest subsea booster installation and the longest booster tieback, failed less than a year after startup, prompting BP to pause its use of subsea pumping technology.

Now, bolstered by advances in the technology and lessons learned by the industry, BP is lining up a trio of deepwater projects that rely on subsea pumping technology. BP has already ordered subsea pumps for its Kaskida and Tiber developments in the Gulf, which are expected to come online in 2029 and 2030, respectively, using 20K-psi production technology. Those developments reached final investment decision (FID) in July 2024 and September 2025, respectively. Earlier this year, BP also reached FID on a subsea boosting project for its operated Thunder Horse development, which has been online since 2008 and produces about 200,000 BOPD from the Miocene, with capacity to produce up to 250,000 BOPD.

The recently sanctioned project will be the first of the three pumps to go into action, with boosting expected to begin in the second half of 2028.

Fiona Campbell, BP VP of projects in the Gulf of America and Canada, told JPT that because Thunder Horse has so much oil in place and the production unit has spare power and payload, subsea pumping was a viable solution to consider. The March 2026 FID of the Thunder Horse subsea boosting project underscores the operator’s belief in the value of subsea pumping.

“This is more than an FID of one pump. This is about (using pumps) at scale. How are we looking to develop a standard approach here?” she said.

BP is seeking a programmatic, repeatable approach to subsea pumping. Such an approach touches on project management, engineering, quality planning, supply chain, sparing strategies and other key elements required for reliable execution.

Lessons Learned

BP was an early adopter of subsea pumping, with the aforementioned failure during the King deployment in 2009 being its first use case. “That project, we stopped when we had a failure. We took a hard look at what happened,” Campbell said.

The King pump operated for about 10 months before experiencing technical issues. She said the project highlighted challenges related to equipment design issues, operational complexity, maintenance requirements, and supply chain challenges that were more difficult than anticipated.

The King pump, a marinized screw-type pump, was “essentially a prototype,” she said. During its short run, the pump provided valuable insights into reservoir performance and helped advance BP’s understanding of subsea pumping technology. However, the production gains fell short of expectations.