EXPLORATION • DRILLING • FIELD SERVICES
Underwater
Robin Stephens profundiza en el proyecto MACH, el cual está desarrollando una amplia base de datos de información retrospectiva de la corriente oceánica
Robin Stephens bietet einen Einblick in das MACH-Projekt, das eine umfassende Hindcast- Datenbank für Meeresströmungen entwickelt
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ffective offshore oil and gas exploration, engineering design, field development and operational planning in deep water environments require a
comprehensive understanding of the ambient and extreme ocean current conditions through the use of in-situ measurements and ocean modelling technology. Although in recent years, there have been significant advances in ocean modelling technology, ensuring fully ‘fit for purpose’ model results has continued to challenge the research community. Some 7% of the world’s oil and gas
resources are believed to be within the deep offshore regions such as West Africa and North and South America. Since the 1980s, the exploration and production of oil within deepwater reservoirs has steadily increased and by 2015, it reached 10 million barrels per day, equivalent to 10% of global oil output.
Te oil and gas majors have the
utmost respect for the challenging ocean conditions that characterise these regions and in turn, carry out the necessary due diligence to help minimise the uncertainties in engineering design and operational planning. However, producing a high quality, robust, fit for purpose
Robin Stephens provides insight into the MACH project, which is developing a comprehensive ocean current hindcast database.
VISION
ocean simulation is still proving to be a difficult challenge to overcome. To better understand the ocean conditions within a potential development site, an oil and gas company would typically deploy an oceanographic mooring that would be equipped with current meters, as well as temperature and conductivity sensors to acquire detailed site-specific measurements. Although such an approach can provide a detailed insight, measurements are seldom more than a year in duration, which is relatively short and can therefore limit the insight provided. When designing an offshore structure it’s important to consider the longer-term variability in conditions at a given location – a year’s worth of measurements may not necessarily capture all of the characteristics of the ocean’s current conditions.
DESIGNING FPSOs Te design of deepwater offshore structures such as a floating production facility will comprise subsea components including risers and moorings, which will span right through the water column from the floating surface structure down to the seabed. Tis means that the loadings on subsea components will be strongly influenced by the current flow through depth. When designing such
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