The OGM Interactive Edition - Summer 2023 - Read Now!
View Past IssuesIn the search for data to improve drilling and exploration effectiveness, the oil and gas industry is moving to the world of robotics and in particular autonomous marine vehicles. This data gathering initiative is particularly important in frontier and harsher weather environments, where there has been little investigation to date.
Wave Glider™ is an autonomous marine vehicle (AMV) that is propelled by wave action and solar energy that can remain at sea continuously for up to a year. This flexible platform brings to bear a wide range of very large and powerful sensors, making it ideal for persistent marine survey and monitoring. Deployed in all areas of the globe for a variety of services and tasks. Wave Glider technology has demonstrated its effectiveness at monitoring surface hydrocarbons; it has been put to use to track marine animals (sharks, whales and turtles), to measure water quality (algae, chlorophyll, PH and CO2), to measure physical oceanographic and meteorological parameters, as well as tracking shipping.
The patented wave energy system propels the vehicle at water speeds from 0.4 to 2.0 knots, depending on sea state. The two-part system normally operates in more than 25 feet of water, but simple reconfiguration with a shorter cable permits operation in waters as shallow as 15 feet.
Tested and proven with over 200 Wave Gliders performing more than four years of customer missions, from the Arctic to Australia, the original Wave Glider has proven itself both reliable and durable. Since 2010, Wave Gliders have traveled over 300,000 nautical miles globally, and PacX Wave Gliders have set the world distance record for autonomous ocean vehicles. The original Wave Gliders have completed over 150 missions, collected millions of discrete data points, and navigated through five hurricanes and three cyclones, all the while continuously transmitting data, clocking more than 11900+ days at sea.
Risk management: The Wave Glider by virtue of its low profile and flexibility on maneuvering around obstructions can be placed as close to the obstruction as possible. The data transmitted by it in real time will give valuable intelligence to the party chief and his/her team on currents’ behavior to ensure they run the operation (streamer spread) efficiently and safely. The idea is to ensure under no circumstances the spread hits the platform yet acquires as much of the survey as possible.
HSE: No human being on board the wave glider and save biofouling these AMV’s can stay at sea for days, weeks, month.
Liability: LROG assets are fully insured; LROG will be responsible for any damage that takes place to its asset, the Wave Glider and its associated sensors.
Data quality: Wave Glider ADCP data is as good as if not better than a bottom mounted vessel ADCP data as per the shoot-out test done between the two.
Cost advantage: Save bio-fueling, the Wave Gliders, which are fuel free, can stay at sea for extended duration. This technology replaces the traditional need for a vessel full time that uses fuel and has to make port calls every few days or weeks to collect fuel supply. A vessel typically costs 150K-200K to get it fitted with a bottom mounted ADCP. Then typical daily vessel cost is around 7000 per day. Wave Gliders can do this job for much less cost.
This technology has been successfully used to mitigate risks with streamer surveys conducted around obstructions. Wave Gliders equipped with ADCP’s (Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers) can be deployed across each of the obstructions on a streamer survey in the Gulf of Mexico. Each was placed in a 100m x 100m box just outside the 500 meter extrusion zone. Data was sent directly to the party chief on the streamer survey vessel via a secure Internet service. The same data can be viewed at other places as requested by clients understanding that data security is maintained.
This set-up helped the survey to manage the efficiency and risks during close pass seismic across obstructions. In 2013 Wave Gliders spent more than 575 days at sea doing such missions.
Data is recorded either as averaged or split by bins. It is then sent via secure Internet to the party chief on the survey vessel and the onboard navigation team, giving them valuable information to effectively navigate the survey.
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