Optoelectronic Technical Meeting Establishes Itself as International Event

The annual Optoelectronic Technical Meeting has established itself as an international event with a unique mix of representatives from operators, service companies, subsea systems suppliers, technology providers, R&D institutes and universities.

After being held in Aberdeen for two years, this was the first time the Optoelectronic Technologies for the Oil and Gas Industry has been held in Bergen, Norway. This year’s event was hosted by Christian Michelsen Research 8th November, and continues the growth from previous events.

With about 110 attendees and the majority coming from outside of Norway, this meeting has established itself as an international event.

The associated exhibit is also increasing; displaying 16 scientific posters and 10 table top exhibits. An ice-breaker reception hosted the evening before the meeting gathered more than 60 attendees for networking.

Increased bandwidth will increase the subsea recovery rate

Optoelectronic technologies have developed rapidly over the last decades, but it is only in recent years that Statoil and many other operators are starting to specify and use fibre optical communication to subsea installations.

Christina Johansen from FMC Technologies says we need to ensure that all the data we now have the possibility of obtaining is aggregated and presented as useful information to the right people, rather than just flooding us.

– Increased Oil Recovery (IOR) is the key driver for technology development within oil and gas, says Johansen. Aspects such as high temperature and pressure (HPHT), longer tie-back, deep water and Arctic conditions are pushing the development. We now have the necessary bandwidth and this need to be utilized so that the recovery rate from subsea wells get closer to that of topside wells.

 Unique feature with optical sensing

High temperature capability and the possibility for distributed sensing are two of the arguments for using fibre optical sensing. Distributed temperature sensing (DTS) has been known and used for some time but we now see distributed strain being more mature and distributed acoustic being developed.

Fibre optical sensing give the possibility of placing the transmitting and receiver optics and electronics in a benign environment topside or marinized subsea, while the sensing element just consist of a passive optical fibre. The optical fibre being immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI) and galvanic isolation is also beneficial with respect to high power application such as subsea processing and boosting.

The event was co-sponsored by FMC Technologies, The Michelsen Centre, NCE Subsea, Society for Underwater Technology (SUT), Norwegian Petroleum Society and Institute of Physics.

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Offshore Nieuws Staff, November 24, 2011; Image: ncesubsea