Page 23: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Dec/Jan 2015)

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when you want,” says Richard Knox, the inventor of the that could supply power to seabed users. In October, it signed a

Analysis concept. “Then there is the research combining the two memorandum of understanding the Gardline to jointly develop

Rig stats technologies. Our aim was to get as much energy out metocean monitoring and maritime security systems.

Worldwide from as small a footprint as possible.” All in all, there are potential solutions out there to remove

Rig Type Total Rigs Contracted Available Utilization

EC-OG’s tidal turbines are each just 2m high, in the umbilical. What was missing was a way to transport

Drillship 109 85 24 77% a con? guration which optimizes the ? ow and chemicals, such as MEG, for injection to the well site. But

Jackup 399 286 113 71% power generation, and can be removed work is underway on this, too. For example, OceanWorks 151 110 41 72%Semisub individually from the frame. As each has International, was awarded an engineering contract to help 31 19 12 61%

Tenders its own DC generator, there is built in develop a deepwater permanent subsea pressure compensated

Total 690 500 190 72% redundancy, and they can start producing chemical storage and injection system, as part of a project

North America electricity with a current ? ow as low as supported by the US Department of Energy, the Research

Rig Type Total Rigs Contracted Available Utilization 0.4m/sec. Partnership for Securing Energy for America with support 37 35 2 94%Drillship

Key to the design has been to cre- from the DeepStar program, as well as Baker Hughes and 23 7 16 30%Jackup ate a system that can sit in a compact, Fugro. 18 15 383%

Semisub over trawlable structure, which meets road Oil major Total, working with French firm Doris

N/A N/AN/A N/A

Tenders transport regulations, for ease of logistics, and a turbine con- Engineering, has also been exploring designs for subsea 78 57 21 73%

Total ? guration which gets the most from the ocean current, Knox chemical injection systems, for both oil and gas subsea tie-

Asia Paci? c says. The hub will also have an intelligent energy management backs, with a key benefit being reducing umbilical cost pro-

Rig Type Total Rigs Contracted Available Utilization system to get the maximum life out of the battery. curement and installation time. The longer-term goal would 15 5 10 33%

Drillship

The ? rm started testing a model at Newcastle be to reduce the connections to an FPSO from the seabed to

Jackup 118 75 43 63%

University two years ago, using a one third scale just the flowlines.

34 15 19 44%

Semisub

Drummond think’s there is potential, thanks to these unit. The testing at Fort William is due to run for 20 12 860%

Tenders technologies, to do away with the umbilical. The next chal- about 18 months and will also demonstrate the 187 107 80 57%

Total lenge will be getting rid of the export pipeline. “If you can power hub’s ability to be remotely control and moni-

Latin America get a light-powered chemical injection skid, we have done tored subsea applications via a desk top, without the

Rig Type Total Rigs Contracted Available Utilization away with the umbilical. The next step is to do away with conventional umbilical.

Drillship 28 21 7 75% the pipeline,” he says.

While initially the concept was aimed at brown? eld sites,

Jackup 52 40 12 76% where wells were being shut-in due to electrical failures, the

Ocean Power Technologies’ PowerBuoy o