Oceanology International Presents Ocean Observation, Forecasting, Hydrography and Geophysics (UK)

“Oceanology International is a unique event; there is nowhere else where such a broad range of providers of technologies and users of technologies and the applications of technology come together,” says the event’s Conference Chairman, Ralph Rayner, Professorial Research Fellow, London School of Economics; and Sector Director, Energy and Environment for the BMT Group.

“It is an event where people can share ideas and where they can migrate applications from one area to another”

The biennial exhibition and conference being held Tuesday 13 – Thursday 15 March 2012, ExCeL, London, UK, is the global forum where industry, academia and government share knowledge and connect with the marine technology and ocean science community, improving their strategies for measuring, exploiting, protecting and operating in the world’s oceans – the keynote address to the Ocean Observation and Forecasting session by Eric Lindstrom, Head of Oceanography at NASA will be a particular highlight of this year’s Oceanology International 2012.

 Plethora of technologies

Ralph Rayner continues: “In the exhibition hall we have a plethora of technologies for measuring things in the oceans, monitoring the oceans, mapping the oceans, and navigation in the oceans. We also have those providers of services who take the outputs from ocean technologies and turn them into useful products, whether they be maps, or understanding of ocean currents, or understanding of different aspects of the ocean environment.

 Andy Hill, Marine Geohazard Technical Authority, BP Exploration, who is chairing the Hydrography & Geophysics conference stream, “From the offshore industry’s point of view this conference covers the whole range of marine sciences that are relevant to the oil industry; we have subsurface, environmental, marine sciences, metocean and subsea engineering. They are all covered. This is is a great range of sciences that are presented at the conference and on the floor of the show itself, all the technology is there and we can actually understand how it all works together and we can speak to the contractors that are involved in it and that support our services.”

Highlighting the fact that BP is supporting and sponsoring Oceanology International, Andy Hill explains: “It is significant, this is a growing area of importance to our work and the integrity of our offshore operations. Marine sciences isn’t just a matter of being able to find oil and gas, it is a matter of being able to produce it safely, put our facilities in the right position, understand the environment in which we are operating in totality, and Oceanology covers all of those areas, it provides us with the links to our contractors and academia that provide the support to our services.”

 Looking at the conference

 “In the conference we bring together those themes,” says Prof Rayner. “We bring together the technologies in strands of the conference with the end-uses in other strands of the conference. We have six strands covering that broad spectrum of applications.”

The Ocean Observation & Forecasting and Hydrography & Geophysics conferences take place on Thursday 15 March. Others covered by one-day conference during the show are Marine Renewables; Offshore Oil & Gas; Navigation & Positioning; and Maritime Security.

 Ocean Observation and Forecasting

 “Ocean observations and ocean forecasts are an essential prerequisite to safety, to the economic development of ocean resources, and protection of the ocean environment,” says Ralph Rayner. “In the ocean observation and forecasting session of the conference, we bring together two main themes.

“In the first we look at the technologies, at what new technologies are emerging and at ways in which ocean observations can be made more cost effectively. In the second, we look at how the data from those observations is turned into useful products, how those products are helpful to different industries, or to different areas of scientific research.

 “We have an exciting range of speakers, starting with a keynote presentation from Eric Lindstrom of NASA who is going to talk about the latest development in satellite oceanography, the launch of a mission to map the salinity of the oceans from space. He is going to be followed by a range of speakers covering many different areas of technology and many different application areas.”

Zdenka Willis, Director – NOAA Integrated Ocean Observation chairs the morning of the Ocean Observation and Forecasting session. Following Eric Lindstrom’s keynote address on Ocean surface salinity from space: early results from the Aquarius/SAC-D mission, Clayton Jones, Senior Director, Teledyne Webb Research, will speak on the Slocum glider – persistent ocean observation; Charles Cousin, President of Bellamare will then take the platform to speak about plankton image analysis; to be followed by ‘A UV-LED based optical fiber biofilm sensor: design calibration, and field application’ presented by Matthias Fischer, Scientist with IFM-Geomar. Paul Hothus, Executive Director of the World Ocean Council will speak on the international ocean industry and science platform for ocean observations; with Liesl Holting, Senior Research Engineer, University of South Florida the final speaker of the morning.

Gwyn Griffiths, Head of the Underwater Systems Lab. (USL), National Marine Facilities Division chairs the afternoon session which begins with a keynote by Dr. Samuel Walker, Group Marine Science Expert for BP International. This will be followed by five presentations from around the world – Cabled Ocean Observatories: the NEPTUNE experience by Kate Moran, Director, NEPTUNE Canada; Latest Advances in Operational Oceanography in Spain Regarding Ocean Monitoring and Forecasting by Enrique Alvarez Fanjul, Head of Oceanography Area, Puertos del Estado; An African Network of Offshore Real-Time Metocean Stations by Valerie Quiniou-Ramus, Metocean Specialist, Total SA; Operational Wave Forecasting Using a High-Resolution, Finite Element Model by John Bacon, Coastal Processes Modeller, CEFAS; and A New Approach to Surface Currents Monitoring by Marc Lucas, Oceanographer at CLS.

 Hydrography and Geophysics

Andy Hill chairs the hydrography and geophysics session, he explains: “In that we are going to be talking about global best practices that have just been published by the International Oil and Gas Producers Association, we are going to talk about new and emerging technologies; the application of those technologies; and also some papers demonstrating how all of that can be put together into an integrated effect to provide us with the answers we need to support our business both in the offshore oil and gas industry and also the offshore wind industry as well.

“We are going to have a complete range of personalities there to present, we are going to have representatives from offshore operators from the offshore energy industry both oil and gas and from renewables; we’re going to have key contractors, technology developers, consultants and academia from around the world, we hope to have multiple continents represented in the sciences that we are presenting.”

Those speakers in the morning of 15 March include Palle Jensen of Maersk Oil on The OGP Guidelines for Conduct of Marine Drilling Hazard Surveys; Dag Lundquist of Statoil covering Experience with Geohazards Evaluations on the Norwegian Continental Shelf; Karen SWare and Andy Malone of RPS Energy looking at Limitations in HR2D Seismic: not understood then and not understood now; with Alistair Robertshaw of BP bringing the morning session to a close with Application of new and emerging technologies for the improvement of marine site investigations.

The afternoon session features four presentations. Use of High Definition 3D reprocessing in Integrated Drill Site evaluations by Oyvind Ruden of Shell; Multi-streamer short offset high resultion 3D seismic acquisition by Peter Sack and Tor Hauglund of Sound Oceanics; Rajesh A Valdya of Reliance Industries talking on Integrated site investigations – Deep-water KGD6, Offshore India: Appoach, Learning and Benefits; and Richard Weiland, Eric Liedtke, Pierre Liagre and Gary Adams of BP’s presentation: Identification and Characterization of Geohazards and Geotechnical Challenges in the Mad Dog Phase Development Area, Gulf of Mexico.

The conference closes with a session summary and open discussion. Andy Hill will share chairing duties with Ken Games of Gardline in the morning; and Richard Salisbury of Fugro in the afternoon.

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Offshore WIND staff, January 16, 2012; Image: oceanologyinternational