The initial two-year contract involves providing real-time meteorological and current profile measurements from one rig in water depths of 3,000m and the two others each operating at around the 600m mark. The contract is due to begin in October 2006 with the 3,000m depth measurements off the Deepwater Frontier drillship. The contract provides some interesting challenges, in particular the number of measurements required from one deepwater rig.
The component parts of the system
During the first phase of measurements at 3,000m depths, the rig will be fitted with a met station for measurement of atmospheric parameters in real-time and a custom-made gantry, for ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) deployment and support. A downward-looking 38kHz ADCP will profile the first 1,000m, while an upward facing seabed-mounted ADCP will profile the lower 500m.
A horizontal ADCP will provide far field near-surface water currents and directional waves unaffected by the rig whilst an ROV mounted ADCP will provide current profiles in real-time over the full ocean depth down to 3,000m. Data from all instruments will be displayed and stored on PC’s onboard the drillship running Fugro GEOS software.
The second phase of measurements at 600m depths will include downward-looking ADCPs with horizontal ADCPs measuring currents and waves, with met stations aboard the rigs.
The initial contract will involve carrying out observations for two years on three rigs; with the possibility of a contract extension of up to three more years on a further four rigs.
Further information on Fugro Survey India Private Limited (FSIPL) from www.fugro.in and Fugro GEOS from www.geos.com