Shell Nigeria Update

In May 2006, Muir Matheson secured a contract with Shell to provide a system detailing real-time met ocean data throughout its Nigeria operations. Chris Leiper – Shell Nigeria Project Manager, provides an update on the past year of the project.

Muir Matheson visited the Bonga FPSO in November 2007 to assess the weather monitoring equipment and complete calibration checks.

At the request of Shell Marine Muir Matheson was asked to provide an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) for temporarily deployment on the Bonga FPSO to support the Seismic 4D survey operations. In 3 weeks a site survey, erection of a deployment platform, rental, shipment and installation of a Workhorse 300 ADCP was completed. The software team wrote and tested a new driver and developed the WeatherNet site to incorporate real time data from the ADCP which can be be viewed by the Survey vessel. The service provided for the survey vessel has been enhanced by adding 5 day weather and water current forecasting.

Upcoming activities include the build of two new Squall Warning systems destined for the Niger Delta region which will be linked to WeatherNet and provide Operations with information about Squalls in the area.

The EA FPSO (Sea Eagle) is under repair as the vessel was attacked by rebels and evacuated over a year ago. All efforts are now being made to put the vessel back into production.

There is a lot of interest being generated within Shell about the WeatherNet project, and each day brings new opportunities. Hopefully this project will continue to increase Muir Matheson’s exposure in West Africa.

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