Oil and gas companies have committed to jointly funding two projects worth more than £4million through the Industry Technology Facilitator (ITF).
The full details will be announced at the Technology Showcase conference in Aberdeen this week.
The first project is the Fullwave Game Changer research project, which has been extended for a further phase, with a consortium of 15 oil and gas operator and service companies working in collaboration with Imperial College London.
The phase II investment of more than £2.5million brings the total funding over the last nine years to £7.5million.
The project aims to deliver an advance in seismic imaging leading to enhanced prospect evaluation and reservoir exploitation.
Project director, Professor Mike Warner of Imperial College London said: “The launch of the Phase II work is vindication of the significant strides that our team has made in the application of advanced seismic analysis to transform the subsurface imaging capability for the industry.
“Project participants are bringing our technology in-house for their own reservoirs, and our seismic survey company participants are offering the technology for commercial use in the industry.
“Some of our oil company participants can already pinpoint significant capital savings on field appraisal projects through avoiding unnecessary and expensive drilling expenditure by using our technology to better target hydrocarbons in their reservoirs.”
Members have also funded a £1.9million joint industry project to improve tropical cyclone forecasting in Northern Australia to mitigate costly disruptions to operations.
ITF has also led the collaboration to secure funding for the two-year project which will be carried out by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
The Bureau’s head of research, Dr Peter May, said: “This joint industry research project will provide tangible benefits for the oil and gas industry and will eventually be built into ongoing improvements in public weather forecasting for the community.
“Forecast accuracy continues to improve through investment in access to high volumes of accurate, real-time weather data. Supercomputing capabilities can now analyse this data and run high resolution forecasting models, which will critically deliver new research initiatives to improve forecasting models.”
Both projects will be discussed at the Technology Showcase at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre (AECC) on Wednesday, March 4th.
Dr Patrick O’Brien, chief executive of ITF, said: “The two new joint industry projects with Imperial College London and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology are prime examples of effective collaboration by the industry to propel solutions to costly challenges. By sharing the costs associated with new technologies the industry can work together to maximise production and reduce risks, which is crucial in the current climate.”