The Oceanology International conference covers such a wide range of industries, all with the common mission of measuring, developing, protecting, or operating in the world’s oceans, providing lots of room for potential collaborations and idea sharing among market leaders.
Being a conference with numerous offshore/subsea market leaders in attendance, it provides an opportunity for attendees to become inspired by new advancements within the industry and develop new customer relationships. Of particular interest to our team were new equipment and companies that acquire, transfer, and store data and analytics technologies.
We also noticed many oil spill company leaders were in attendance, which was interesting to see the continuing developing partnerships and collaborations between the marine technology companies and the oil and gas sector.
Through the bustling exhibit halls and between sessions, we had the opportunity to talk with multiple attendees about the economic status of some of these new markets. One thing most sector leaders agree on is that the market will eventually bounce back—but the one unanswered question is still a matter of when.
Much of the conference buzz also surrounded themes around autonomous unmanned vehicles (AUVs,) oil spill equipment, remote operated vehicles (ROVs), and various new software opportunities pertaining to data management.
The ever-growing capabilities of unmanned vehicles, along with industry applications, communications, and data are driving further advances in the ways that we collect information and work within the oceans.
With nearly 500 exhibitors from dozens of countries around the world, Oceanology International gives PMI a unique opportunity to meet with companies and discover their innovative solutions to today’s marine technology challenges. It also provides a great opportunity to share about our innovative subsea cable technologies and to create new partnerships and collaborations.
PMI is positioned well within this field given the application of various cable solutions such as our no tool or prep required cable strain relief systems (BSRs), synthetic cable terminations, and 3rd party cable testing capabilities which provide much needed services to the a wide range of markets who are associated with ocean work. Our custom cable subsea systems and deep subsea cable expertise explain why companies around the world count on PMI. When you’ve got a lot of ocean in front of you, you need PMI behind you.
See you back in London for Oceanology International 2020!
A new ship in the fleet of Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) suggests low oil prices haven’t closed the spigot of innovation in deep ocean engineering.
A naming ceremony in Nagasaki, Japan, in mid-March celebrated PGS’s acquisition of the Ramform Tethys, a new seismic data acquisition ship that’s brimming with the latest 3D and 4D technology for seismic projects that bounce sound waves off the sea floor to find untapped supplies of crude oil.
Built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Shipbuilding at a cost of $285 million, the Tethys is the third Ramform Titan-class vessel in the PGS fleet; the first two were finished in 2013-2014 and the fourth will come to sea in 2017. Titan-class ships have a distinctive triangular hull that’s 104 meters long and 70 meters wide at the stern — the widest hulls currently at sea, PGS says. The extra-wide stern looks a bit odd on the sea, but it has huge benefits for towing streams of sensor arrays and providing extra stability for the crews scanning the data pouring in from those arrays.
“The Ramform Tethys like her Ramform Titan-class sisters is well adapted to the prevailing economic environment,” PGS says on its website. “Her operational cost per streamer is the lowest around, while the resolution and reliability of the dual-sensor, broadband GeoStreamer data she produces is by far the best currently available.”
The Titan-class ships in the PGS fleet use an impressive amount of underwater cable hardware. The Tethys can carry 24 streamer reels: 16 reels aligned abreast and 8 reels further forward, with capacity for 12-kilometer streamers on each reel. That enables an array with hundreds of thousands of sensors spread over an area of 12 square kilometers — nearly 3,000 acres or more than triple the size of New York’s Central Park.
The new ship makes it faster and easier to deploy and retrieve cable hardware for subsea explorations. That allows surveys to be completed much sooner and ships to stay at sea longer in the calm times between ever-present storms on the high seas. That equals greater efficiencies that can be passed along to PGS clients.
“Productivity, safety, stability and redundancy are the key benefits of these vessels,” said Per Arild Reksnes, executive vice president for operations at PGS, which is based in Norway. “Their ability to tow many streamers gives high data quality with dense cross-line sampling and cost-efficient acquisition with wide tows.”
The Ramform Tethys has six engines producing 26.4 megawatts of power, and carries over 6,000 tons of fuel and equipment. The fact that companies are still buying ships of this size and complexity demonstrates that even with severe economic challenges across the oil sector, people will still see the wisdom of investing in better technology.
Discover how other Oil & Seismic companies are finding ways to save on fuel and cost in our Free Hydrodynamic Efficiency report.
Below the surface of the earth’s crust, there is constant movement as tectonic plates slide past one another and bump into each other. These plates have rough edges that sometimes get stuck. When this happens, the rest of the plates keep moving, and when the edges finally unstick, it causes earthquakes. For centuries, scientists have been trying to study these plate shifts to better understand, and maybe predict when and where earthquakes will hit next. The dramatically deep trenches on the ocean floor where oceanic plates converge would be the ideal location to study these shifts, but due to the cost and difficulty of reaching these locations, scientists have only been able to catch quick glimpses of what’s going on under the surface.
The relatively recent advent of fiber optic cables have dramatically changed the way scientists study tectonic plates on the ocean floor. University of Washington oceanographer John Delaney was one of the first scientists to come up with the idea to attach a network of sensors to subsea cables that could transmit data instantly and continuously. His idea of an “underwater observatory” has recently come into fruition off the Northwest coast of the US and Canada. A constant stream of data from this observatory is now capturing events that scientists have previously only been able to examine after the fact, including the first recording of an eruption of an underwater volcano as it happened.
For more information about Delaney’s work on seismic testing with fiber-optic cables, watch this video: UW scientists capture underwater eruption with new fiber-optic array, set up HD web cam
PMI’s cable management and bending strain relief hardware is already integral in marine seismic data acquisition, as we’ve mentioned in our article “Cable Hardware Adds Productivity to PGS’ 3D Seismic Acquisition Vessels”. As seismic technology and marine exploration continues to evolve, PMI is ready to provide quality hardware to solve the next generation of issues. Contact us today to schedule an appointment to talk to our experts.
Photo credit: www.pgs.com
Weak oil prices weighed heavily on the folks attending last month’s annual meeting of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. Time and again, the people we talked to at 2015 SEG New Orleans were on the prowl for cooperative cost-saving opportunities.
With crude oil prices down more 50 percent from their June 2014 peak, everyone is laser-focused on limiting expenses. Sending fewer people to trade shows must be one way they’re cutting back, because the show had noticeably low attendance.
Those who did get to attend (or who went to the prior Madrid EAGE show) got a look at how PMI is helping offshore industry clients hold the line on costs. Those who missed the show also missed a chance for a hands-on look at our new Hydro-Dynamic DYNA II Sheave Mount and its drag-reducing design.
Our meetings with key seismic exploration customers confirmed how new PMI technology is helping slice operating costs. Today’s 3D seismic operators tow 16-plus streamers along with attached cable management hardware behind oceangoing seismic survey ships. That adds up to a lot of drag, requiring lots of engine power (and fuel for those engines).
At PMI, we’ve learned from working alongside our clients that making our hardware hydrodynamically efficient can significantly reduce the power required to tow streamer & hardware systems — cutting hardware component drag by up to 40 percent. Just multiply the power and fuel savings by 8, 16 or possibly 32 components towed behind a ship and you can see the potential for a significant reduction in costs.
Making small changes like these to our cable hardware gives our clients substantial savings.
If you could not attend either show, download our Free Hydrodynamic Efficiency Report and start thinking about the benefits of our new technology.
In the United States, wave energy technology is less advanced than tidal. But as interest grows, companies like ours are prepared to equip these new tidal power companies with proven subsea cable hardware helping them become profitable sources of electricity.
Small tidal power companies are taking advantage of the rising interest in alternative energies. Large amounts of coastal waters are being reserved on both coasts of North America by small companies who plan to take advantage of ocean energy technologies, in the hopes that these sites will become profitable sources of electricity. Read more…
The launch of the Ramform Titan class marine seismic data acquisition ships by Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) mark a new era of subsea oil and gas exploration. The second of these vessels, the Ramform Atlas was launched in January, 2014. The Ramform Titan and Ramform Atlas are designed and built by PGS to be the most powerful and productive of their kind using the latest marine and electronic seismic technologies.
Every detail of these vessels was evaluated based on optimum productivity and safety including the cable management systems used to deploy and attach up to a 24-streamer array system. The towed streamers consist of several thousand recording sensors over an area greater than 3,000 acres (12 km2), or 3.5 times the size of New York’s Central Park.
The engineers at PGS have chosen the latest proven technologies available throughout the Ramform Titan-class ships, including the new PMI Dyna-Hanger II and Dyna-BSR cable management systems. These systems provide significantly higher load capacities to accommodate the demands of extreme towing loads caused by wider streamer arrays. As a bonus, the major components of both systems can be installed, or removed, in just minutes without special tools or extensive personnel training to increase on deck productivity and reduce downtime.
The Dyna-Hanger II cable management system uses exclusive patent pending designed symmetrical suspension arms with tool-less features and helical rods. It is designed with a hinged collar that snaps around the housing and is secured with just a quick-release pin. A specially designed housing prevents the attachment point from shifting on the lead-in cable while the collar design enables the cable to rotate freely under tension. It is capable of accommodating loads up to 100% of the cable’s rated breaking strength.
The Dyna-BSR bending strain relief system provides cable bending and abrasion protection, while enabling rotation of various cable attachments. It replaces traditional slip-on bending strain relief systems that use a one-piece body design. Instead, the Dyna-BSR patent pending two-piece system can be installed or removed at any time during deployment or retrieval procedures. It is designed with a reinforced polyurethane, two-part shell to provide added strength and flexibility. A unique fastener system quickly secures the shells together. In total, the system offers graduated stiffness to protect cables from off-axis loads through a wide range of angle combinations by maintaining a safe minimum bend radius.
“Everything on the Ramform Titan class was chosen for its contribution to our primary goals of providing optimal seismic productivity and crew safety,” according to Sverre Olsen, Technical Manager at PGS. “Every sub-system we have, builds on the total system to achieve our goals. PMI systems were chosen because they continue to meet PGS productivity and higher load requirements.”
“The successful PGS installation is a result of our conversations with customers about their challenges then developing cable hardware and support services to meet their needs,” said Bob Schauer, president, PMI industries. “We are focused on unmatched support for our customers. Whether it is easy-to-use hardware, engineering support or comprehensive cable testing services, we listen and then perform.
