Offshore staff
OSLO, Norway – PGS and Cognite have collaborated to help increase the speed of PGS’ seismic vessels without disrupting the acquisition process.
Cognite’s Industrial DataOps software, including Cognite Data Fusion, is designed to provide seismic vessel operators with a clear view of factors influencing optimal operating speed.
The solution is said to have cut the production time for PGS’ fleet by over 15 days, saving the company more than $2 million/yr and reducing its manual reporting by around a month.
Steering a Ramform vessel with a full streamer spread through waves and currents while allowing for sufficient recording of the seismic data creates issues that can restrict production speeds.
Through the PGS Proteus vessel digitalization initiative, PGS seeks to boost operational efficiency by using and combining available data.
In this case, the company saw an opportunity to combine factors influencing optimal operating speed into a single, variable-speed tool that would also allow seismic surveying to be optimized in real time, and potentially remove speed-restricting factors.
PGS and Cognite combined to streamline data ingestion pipelines between Cognite Data Fusion and the systems containing the data needed to calculate the vessels’ optimal speed.
Using the Cognite Power BI connector and training provided by Cognite Academy, PGS’ teams developed Power BI reports combining vessel sensor and operational data.
These are said to have delivered improved insight into the details of vessel production performance.
The team has also developed an onboard vessel speed dashboard that combines data from the most relevant systems representing the various restricting factors. These inputs are transformed and presented to the vessel crews, indicating whether there is a case for a further speed increase.
The speed-related data is then automatically transmitted to shore, for ingestion into Cognite Data Fusion.
According to PGS, the development has made the crews’ job easier, removing parts of the manual process and supporting decision-making.
In addition, there has been a marked improvement in the maximum acquisition speeds since implementing the vessel speed dashboard.
Last fall, the three fastest surveys were performed with an average speed increase of 5.5% compared with the three fastest surveys of 2019.
A new goal this year is to work reliably at level four on the 10-point Sheridan-Verplank scale of automation, in which the computer suggests optimal bottom speed. PGS aims to reach level seven, where the computer executes speed control and reports to the crew.
06/25/2021
