SEMI-STATE petroleum major Statoil has awarded Kongsberg Oil & Gas Technologies a three-year, £14million (NOK150million) contract to develop what it claims will be the first integrated environmental monitoring system for upstream oil and gas.
The objective is to devise an environmental monitoring system that enables physical, biological and chemical data to be measured during actual production.
Kongsberg Oil & Gas Technologies is leading a consortium that includes Kongsberg Maritime Subsea, IBM and DNV. Statoil is contributing £6.5million (NOK 75million) to the project, with consortium members stumping up the rest.
At this point, coming up with an integrated solution is by no means certain, according to Statoil’s head of R&D, Johnny Hersvik. “A lot of hard work remains to be done before we will know whether (environmental monitoring) works as we hope it will.
“But if we succeed in taking environmental monitoring from being a separate task to become an integrated part of daily production, we will achieve even safer operations and reduced costs. This will represent a quantum leap for offshore environmental monitoring.”
Testing will be conducted at Kongsberg Maritime Subsea in Horten, Norway.
Statoil carried out a pilot in 2009 to investigate the effects of cuttings during drilling on the subsea Morvin field in the Norwegian Sea, where substantial collections of coldwater corals have been found.
Kongsberg executive VP Even Aas described the project “an important step in (Kongsberg’s) long-term strategy in developing integrated, continuous environmental monitoring systems to meet a growing demand for early detection and quicker response related environmental impact from offshore oil and gas activities”.
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