System development for profiling deeper waters in support of the oil and gas industry

In recent years, the exploration and production activities of the oil and gas industry have been expanding into deeper water. With this expansion came a demand for reliable and continuous ocean current measurements throughout the water column over deeper ranges than previously required. Meeting this demand has required developing new systems that combine new instrumentation, deployment schemes, and real time software for data display and forecasting. This paper discusses some of the problems that had to be solved in meeting this new demand. Operating acoustic instrumentation such as ADCPs around oil and gas platforms has to combat both acoustic noise sources and obstacles in the water. The noise sources include plant and platform noise as well as flow noise generated by thrusters. The noise problem worsens as the acoustic systems operate at lower frequencies. Submerged obstacles that can interfere with the ADCP's acoustic beams include legs, lines, and risers. In this paper, the authors discuss data and field experiences from collaborative work between RD Instruments, Fugro/GEOS, and Shell E&P Technology Company. The project involved Shell's working with Fugro/GEOS as system integrator to deploy RDI's state of the art 38 kHz Phased Array ADCP. Innovative aspects of the work include new instrument technology-hardware & firmware-different deployment schemes to optimize data, and specific software development for real time data display of the current profiling and current forecasting in support of offshore oil and gas deployments.