Partnership Offers Offshore Weather Monitoring
StormGeo and Deep Sea Mooring have signed an agreement to provide notifications of weather-related movements of floating offshore units and vessels undertaking complex marine operations.
The service, which aims to help customers save money and time while enhancing planning and safety standards, will see StormGeo publish and support the notifications while Deep Sea Mooring will be responsible for the hydrodynamic models and all calculations of motion resulting from the expected weather.
The notifications are made possible through the combination of detailed weather forecasts and advanced hydrodynamic models, which can identify critical movements on floating offshore units. By doing so, recipients can be alerted to the actual consequence of the forecasted weather on vessels, rather than just the weather itself.
In principle, this high-tech approach can be used for all marine operations. As an example, it is now possible to forecast movements and wind speeds on helicopter decks several days in advance. By doing so, it is possible to determine whether the conditions/movements are within the set landing criteria for helicopter traffic. As a result, the efficiency of planning and coordinating helicopter traffic could be significantly enhanced.
A further example is illustrated by floatels that utilize Dynamic Positioning (DP). Here the direction the floatel should have to minimize walkway movement can be calculated, thus increasing availability before disconnection. In addition, information regarding disconnection windows is delivered in advance, meaning the process can be undertaken in safety during calm weather, rather than, in worst case scenarios, waiting for automatic disconnection.
Other applications for the service encompass drilling operations and offshore lifting operations on floating units.
Folkestad and Straume conclude that customers will experience increased availability through the use of their technology, and have a better basis for planning, decision-making and performing secure operations. This, they stress, will be important in reducing operational expenditure.
