You selecting the correct vessel for your marine operations? Lowest likelihood of running into "WoW"
It's no secret that offshore marine operations are weather sensitive. Accurately calculating expected "waiting on weather" in an offshore project is of critical importance to all parties involved, both with regards to time, safety and not least cost.
There are plenty of examples in the past where contractors and / or clients have lost enormous amount of money due to the vessel not being able to perform the marine operations as expected.
I still remember the above Statoil project on Sheringham Shoal where the contractor vessel coped with the expected wave heights, but not with the easy to forget, long swells or long wave periods (usually exceeding 15 seconds). At certain wave periods, a vessel gets into resonance with the wave causing considerable vessel motion that will restrict marine operations despite the fact that the significant wave height is well below the set threshold. Statoil lost more than 600 million Norwegian kroners on this!
And not to forget projects with substantial cost overlays in areas like the GoM and Taiwan where the struggle was not waves but rather ocean currents.
All vessels behaving the same in specific wave conditions?
Absolutely not. We at Miros - Real-time Ocean Insights are advocates of the fact that the most critical component to offshore marine operations are the external environmental forces acting upon the hull of the vessel. That is the case, but it's not just that "simple". Different vessels behave differently in the exact same sea conditions. A large subsea contractor usually has a fleet of vessels to choose from. Which vessel is assigned to which project is of critical importance to the successful execution of the offshore installation campaign.
Response amplitude operator (RAO)
RAO are engineering statistics, or a set of such statistics, that are used to determine the likely response of the vessel to waves. Key words here being "statistics" and "likely".
领英推荐
The solution is here
It is no longer challenging, nor expensive to correlate with accuracy the actual vessel movements to the actual ocean surface conditions. The solution is modern accurate wave radar technology through our WaveSystem solution. It measures up to 40 wave parameters as well as the current direction and speed from the vessel itself.
Once one has access to these measurements it's just a question about starting to log some quality data across the vessel fleet. The longer the period of datalogging the more accurate correlations you have between the vessel's movements and the external environmental forces acting upon the hull.
Soon you will have a completely different insight into your fleet and vessel performance. It then becomes easy to identify which of the vessels are best suited for that Gulf of Mexico project where currents are the main challenge. Which vessel is the best suited for that summer campaign in the North Sea with limited Hs but with a lot of swells. Which vessel is best suited for that Barents Sea autumn campaign with high Hs and multiple wave trains.
Choosing the right vessel will save you hours, days if not weeks in operational uptime in just one project. That equates to a hell of a lot of dollars!
Considering the fact that the cost of the above solution is a fraction of the cost for just one hour delay in operations means that you'll struggle to find a better ROI than that. Anywhere.
A subscription to obtain these measurements / data will not only solve what's discussed here but will also eliminate the need for Wave Buoys, settle contractual disputes, improve your pre-installation analysis, increase safety and much much more.