Aberdeen's Oil & Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) has launched two calls for ideas relating to digital and decommissioning, with £2 million available to successful applicants.
The OGTC says that machine learning techniques could help extend the life of oil and gas fields, while new power and utilities solutions could reduce decommissioning costs.
"We’re looking for digital analytics approaches, such as machine learning, that can rapidly organize, distil, screen and assess data from oil and gas wells," says the OGTC. "Often held in different formats and of variable quality, the data could lead to new discoveries, help extend field life and maximise economic recovery." The deadline for submissions for the digital call for ideas is 10pm on 26 January.
Within decommissioning, the OGTC says that maintaining original power generation and utilities, also known as "life support" systems, during asset decommissioning is inefficient and costly. "We are looking for integrated, modular, environmentally friendly and cost-effective life support solutions, that create flexibility in how and when facilities are decommissioned." The deadline for ideas is 10pm on 16 February.
Each Call has up to £1 million to invest in a portfolio of projects. Full technical details and an of overview of the process is available on the OGTC website.
Steve Roberts, Digital Transformation Solution Centre Advisor, said: “We believe that sophisticated analytics techniques, such as machine learning, could help identify remaining oil and gas accumulations and consequently impact the extent of life of nearby fields and maximise economic recovery in an area.
“There are significant volumes of industry data collected during oil and gas exploration and production, but they are often held in different formats and are of variable age and quality. A digital solution could extract key information from these difficult to analyse data sets and the results could be a key input to end of field life and area plan decisions.
“We are working closely with, and are supported by, the Oil and Gas Authority, Common Data Access and Norwegian Petroleum Directorate to make suitable data sets available for ideas to be tested.”
Susi Wiseman, Decommissioning Solution Centre Project Manager, said: “Companies in the oil and gas industry have identified recurring difficulties with life support systems in recent and current decommissioning programmes resulting in low flexibility, lost time, cost overruns and inconvenience to offshore teams.
“Alternative life support systems could help to significantly reduce the cost of decommissioning, and improve efficiency and productivity.”