Siemens Energy, Buoyant Production collaborate on smart offshore facilities design
Buoyant Production Technologies Ltd. (BPT), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Crondall Energy Ltd. has announced that its pioneering Floating Normally Unattended Installation (NUI) design has moved closer to commercialization with a strategic collaboration with Siemens Energy AS, to jointly market and deliver the units. NUI has the potential to economically unlock smaller and deep-water reservoirs.
The partnership will focus on the use of compact NUIs for the development of offshore oil and gas fields in deep-water locations. Siemens Energy’s digital solution will facilitate a low lifecycle cost solution to BPT’s proprietary ‘Floating NUI’ design that can make projects economically viable and significantly reduce carbon footprint when compared with traditional offshore facilities. With increasing focus on the environmental impact of oil and gas projects, as well as uncertainty surrounding commodity prices, Floating NUIs can offer a robust development solution for the future. The design also presents the potential to tie in sustainable power sources.
Siemens Energy AS and BPT have been successfully working together for the past two years, as part of the Oil and Gas Technology Centre’s ‘Facility of the Future’ study, developing and maturing Floating NUI technology. In this collaboration, BPT brings their proprietary Floating NUI designs, configured for a range of offshore developments. Siemens Energy AS provides the digital hardware and software necessary to enable remote control and operation for the duration of an asset’s lifecycle.
Duncan Peace, Managing Director, Buoyant Production Technologies, said: “Signing this collaboration agreement with Siemens Energy represents a major step in bringing our Floating NUI technology to the market. The use of Siemens Energy’s innovative data and digital solutions offshore has enabled us to develop designs with new operational models and design philosophies compared with traditional offshore facilities.
“BPT has been working with Siemens Energy for the past two years to maximise the value offered by today’s technologies. Given the step change impact our designs have on both lifecycle costs and carbon footprint, we believe the Floating NUI technology is the development solution of the future and we look forward to working with Siemens on delivering that future.”
Richard Harvey, Global Sales Lead for Offshore Production, Siemens Energy, added: “We are excited to sign this agreement with BPT. Through our work to date we have been able to showcase the value of our digital solutions to offshore developments and we are looking forward to working with BPT in delivering digitally enabled Floating NUI projects in the future.”
BPT, was established by Crondall Energy, the FPSO and subsea specialists in 2018 with the goal of developing offshore facilities that utilize digital technologies and novel design philosophies to reduce HSSE risks and minimize lifecycle costs. It has developed a series of production buoy concepts that use technology to achieve low offshore manning and smaller scale, low CAPEX facilities.
Central to the concepts’ patented design, which is scalable for different field requirements, are several features including:
- Slender “hull” structure and integrated (buoyant) “deck box”
- Open deck for topside process equipment and personnel access
- Deck box housing power generation and utilities
- Standardized and scalable topsides and remote monitoring solution
- Minimal motions, enabling deployment in harsh environments
The Floating NUI series includes:
- Production Buoy: A standalone production facility for smaller deep-water developments.
- Power & Control Buoy: Providing well-site services to enable subsea developments such as long-range / complex gas and oil tiebacks.
