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    1. Subsea

    Shell commits to 10-year subsidence monitoring at Ormen Lange offshore mid-Norway

    Sept. 24, 2019
    Norske Shell has started a 10-year seabed subsidence monitoring campaign at the deepwater Ormen Lange gas-condensate field in the Norwegian Sea, using sensors supplied by Sonardyne International.
    (Courtesy Sonardyne International Ltd.)
    Norske Shell’s HSE Advisor, Mats Hauge, Sonardyne’s Senior Project Manager, Nick Street, and Norske Shell’s Senior Project Surveyor, Tomas Frafjord, inspect the first batch of fetch pressure monitoring transponders heading to the Ormen Lange field.
    Norske Shell’s HSE Advisor, Mats Hauge, Sonardyne’s Senior Project Manager, Nick Street, and Norske Shell’s Senior Project Surveyor, Tomas Frafjord, inspect the first batch of fetch pressure monitoring transponders heading to the Ormen Lange field.

    Offshore staff

    FLEET, UK – Norske Shell has started a 10-year seabed subsidence monitoring campaign at the deepwater Ormen Lange gas-condensate field in the Norwegian Sea, using sensors supplied by Sonardyne International.

    The aim is to continuously monitor any movement of the seafloor at the field location. Shell plans to use the data to detect any changes that might arise due to ongoing gas extraction, and to support its reservoir management strategy, with production set to continue for several decades.

    According to Sonardyne, by monitoring vertical displacement of the seabed, operators can detect even small production-induced changes in their reservoirs and overburdens. This can then help decrease subsurface uncertainties in their modeling and planning.

    The project at Ormen Lange will run through at least 2029. Sonardyne is deploying an array of 50 Fetch subsea sensor logging nodes configured as pressure monitoring transponders, in water depths ranging from 800 m to 1,100 m (2,625 ft to 3,609 ft).

    These will collect pressure, temperature and inclination data at the seafloor, at pre-programmed intervals, with the data used to calculate vertical displacement of the seabed.

    For this project Sonardyne says it has doubled the battery endurance of its sensors to 10 years, and improved pressure sensor accuracy.

    09/24/2019