Subsea solutions provider 4Subsea has secured a three-year service agreement with the Norwegian oil and gas firm Vår Energi to monitor and analyze wellhead integrity to ensure safe operations for the Balder Future drilling and completion operations in Norway.
The company said it would monitor the West Phoenix drilling rig for Var Energi.
4Subsea said that its SWIM service employs retrofittable subsea sensors to measure movement and strain on the wellhead.
"It applies advanced algorithms and machine learning combined with the deep domain expertise to monitor fatigue damage accumulation, well support, and structural integrity," 4Subsea said.
The service creates a digital twin of the well and riser systems combined with boundary conditions and updated with sensor data. Sensor data is then collected using remotely operated underwater vehicles and uploaded to 4Subsea's digital service 4insight, which performs advanced analysis on the data.
"The results are presented as easy-to-interpret insights and dashboards, simplifying the complex analysis and effectively support critical decisions. No extra personnel are required and supported by advanced algorithms and machine learning. In addition, 4Subsea's domain experts provide a digital service for improved decision support to Vår Energi's engineering team to ensure safe operations," 4Subsea explained.
The Balder Future redevelopment project is located in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. It is a part of the Balder X project with the target to recover around 200 million barrels of additional reserves from the Balder-Ringhorne area in the North Sea.
Vår Energi in 2019 awarded a rig contract to Seadrill to secure the West Phoenix drilling rig for the drilling new production and injection wells on the project.
According to Seadrill's fleet status report, the rig's $359,000 a day contract with Var Energi starts this month and will run until September 2023.
Vår Energi will then have options to extend the deal until January 2024.