In October 2017, the failure of a flowline jumper in 5,000 ft of water led to the release of 16,000 bbl of oil into the US Gulf of Mexico . Following an investigation, the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) released a report which recommended that the oil and gas industry make various technical and operational improvements to avoid such a release in the future. In the report it is noted that “…all OOC member operators committed to implementing improved subsea leak detection strategies by the end of 2019” (OOC is Offshore Operators Committee).

To improve safety and to address the above commitment of OOC member operators, Hecate has developed a patent-pending, field-tested system for performing subsea leak detection (SSLD). Hecate’s SSLD (i.e., h-SSLD) system can be used to monitor:

• Any number of wells
• Any number of flowlines
• Any number of parameters from each well

The h-SSLD system is a layered implementation where input of pressure, valve and flow information is separated from the analysis of that data.  Analysis is implemented by any number of Analysts running simultaneously in the Analysis layer (Argus).  Io is designed to communicate with the facility using industry standard methods but remains extensible – Hecate can work with you to accommodate other, perhaps less standard, forms of input.

Implemented in standard Windows 10 and designed to run on a desktop or laptop computer, h-SSLD was developed from scratch at Hecate using industry standard software tools (e.g. Easy Modbus). Analysts in Argus can have any number of inputs and can create levels of Alarms that are sent back to the facility.  At the highest level, Argus can create an Alarm intended to shut down some part of the production stream (e.g., one flowline, one well, etc.).  Lower level Alarms are created by h-SSLD and fed back to the facility indicating something amiss but not sufficiently severe to suggest a shutdown.  For example, an Alarm can be issued if the quality of the data feed becomes suspect or if there is a long period time where no data is provided to h-SSLD.

Auxiliary programs in the h-SSLD system include a.) a tool for making graphical representations of the subsea systems being monitored as well as a tool for b.) allowing user data – perhaps most importantly data that led to Alarms being fired – to be replayed for investigative or for training purposes.

Real Time Monitoring (RTM)

Contact