Italian energy industry services firm Saipem has awarded Fugro a monitoring contract to support the construction of an LNG jetty for BP’s Greater Tortue Ahmeyim field offshore Senegal/Mauritania.
Starting in December, Fugro will deploy its InclinoCam vision technology to install more than 190 piles with centimeter precision over a period of approximately 6 months, working from a jack-up barge.
Fugro said its InclinoCam will acquire Geo-data to position the monopiles at the exact location on the earth’s surface, delivering to Saipem’s tight installation tolerances and providing continuous verticality measurements via machine-vision cameras and intelligent visual object recognition algorithms.
"The use of vision technology to install the piles for the jetty will improve safety by reducing the need for human intervention and increase overall project efficiency by providing real-time inclination measurements that can be taken without having to pause the piling operations," Fugro added.
Jaco Stemmet, Fugro’s Director for Africa, said: “We look forward to leveraging the very latest vision technology to automate, optimize and record the whole measuring process, and installing almost one pile a day will deliver on our commitment to Saipem’s schedule. LNG has a clear role in shaping the energy transition and is one of the fastest and most economic paths to lowering carbon emissions. Through this contract award, we are pleased to apply our extensive West African experience, now specifically in Senegal.”
Tortue Ahmeyim
The BP-operated Greater Tortue Ahmeyim cross-border development in Senegal/Mauritania offshore area is one of Africa's deepest offshore projects at 2,000 meters below the sea surface. It will produce gas from an ultra-deepwater subsea system and mid-water floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel, which will process the gas, removing heavier hydrocarbon components.
Gas will then be transferred to the GIMI FLNG at a nearshore hub located on the Mauritania and Senegal maritime border. The FLNG facility is designed to provide circa 2.5 million metric tons of LNG per annum on average. Total gas resources in the field are estimated to be around 15 trillion cubic feet.
Kosmos Energy discovered the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim field in 2015, and BP signed onto the project through an agreement with Kosmos in 2016.
BP is the project operator. The partners sanctioned the first phase of the project development in December 2018.