Site StudiesHorizon Marine has a historical database which includes over 23 years of Eddy Watch reports and data. Records of the weekly charts are reviewed for the purpose of hindcasting major and minor events at specific lease blocks. To date, over 165 studies have been conducted for over two dozen companies. Results include a statistical chart and graphical hindcast of the percentage of time that a site was influenced by the Loop Current and/or eddies on a monthly, seasonally, and yearly basis. These are generally used in planning future operations. |
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Hindcasting
Deepwater exploration, drilling, construction, and production is a tremendously expensive endeavor. The normal day rate for a drill ship is now up to $500,000; specialized construction and pipelaying vessels can hit up to $1 million per day. All of these deepwater operations are sensitive to the incredible power of the Loop Current and its eddies. At many sites in the past, operations have been shut down for weeks, creating the infamous word “downtime”. Horizon
Marine’s hindcasting services give a highly accurate site history
of strong currents. With knowledge of timing and magnitude of events
over the past 15 years, planners and operators can budget more intelligently
for projects that will be influenced by severe currents. These site-specific
hindcasts are assembled by studying the archive of Eddy Watch reports
and compiling statistics for the site in question. Loop Current and
eddy interference at the site are tabulated by week, by month, and
by current speed, enabling the creation of the hindcast statistics.
These studies have assisted planners and operators in every deepwater
region in the northern Gulf of Mexico. |
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Horizon Marine collaborates with scientists from Louisiana State University (LSU) and the University of Colorado to combine the remote sensing tools of each group to better understand circulation processes in the Gulf of Mexico. The LSU Earth Scan Laboratory provides measurements from Terra MODIS, Oceansat OCM, GOES-12, SeaWifs, and NOAA AVHRR. The University of Colorado provides sea surface height (SSH) from the TOPEX/POSEIDON, ERS-1/ERS-2, GFO, Jason-1, and Envisat satellites. Horizon Marine provides an archive of satellite-tracked drifting buoy data. These data are studied and compared to the sea surface height, sea surface temperatures, and ocean color fields observed by the satellites. This integration of advanced remote sensing technologies will eventually enable improved observation and forecasting techniques. Also, with funding assistance from MMS, we developed a real-time data assembly center (presently EddyNet). This center receives ADCP measurements from offshore operations, assembles the data into several graphical forms, and hosts a website to permit access by members. Hindcast work serves as a valuable tool in structural design of offshore facilities. Horizon has conducted historical eddy studies for the Climatology and Simulation of Eddies (CASE) consortium. This includes analysis of historical eddy events to produce path and configuration (P & C) files which numerically describe the features. These P & C files enable the use of the Gulf Eddy Model (GEM) to reproduce historical currents at several depth levels at chosen sites. Horizon Marine is a partner in the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) under the auspices of the US Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE). We work with scientists from the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the University of Miami. Both have developed sophisticated, high resolution ocean dynamic models. Horizon’s role is to evaluate model skill. Our daily observational data in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Trinidad permit direct comparison of model nowcast and forecast results with the synoptic conditions. |
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