The Northern Lights Project and Blue Logic were presented with the ONS 2020 Innovation Awards at ONS 2020 Goes Digital on 1 September. The Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Tina Bru, presented the awards to the winners.
The Northern Lights project is an open-access transport and storage infrastructure for CO2 that includes the transport, injection, and permanent storage of up to 1.5 million metric tons of CO 2 per year in a reservoir in the northern part of the North Sea. By creating a value chain with flexibility to receive CO2 from anywhere in Europe, the project—a collaboration between Equinor, Shell, and Total—offers a solution to industries with an ambitious target for CO2 reduction from their businesses. The project is part of the larger Norwegian project for full-scale carbon capture and storage. The full-scale project will include the capture of CO2 from one or two industrial plants. The facilities are scheduled to become operational in 2024.
The CO2 reception facility will be located at the Naturgassparken industrial area in Øygarden municipality in Western Norway. The facility will be operated from Equinor's facility at the Sture terminal in Øygarden, and the subsea facilities will be operated from the Oseberg A platform.
Blue Logic was awarded the innovation award in the small and medium-sized enterprises category (SME) for its development of an open-standard subsea docking station (SDS) for underwater vehicles. The SDS, permanently installed on the seabed, will enable any type of subsea vehicle to dock, recharge, download and upload data. Blue Logic’s solution will support the industry will enable improved reliability and regularity in subsea systems, save costs, and lower emissions of greenhouse gases, and will improve safety and working conditions for personnel. Standardizing the docking stations will also spur innovation and competition in the autonomous underwater vehicle market and allow new suppliers to enter with new vehicles.
A key enabler for the SDS development was contactless, two-way, inductive subsea charging and communications technology for subsea vehicles to recharge and share data. It guides the drones to locate the docking station, using the harmless magnetic field they naturally emit. By providing access to power for charging and communications for upload and download of inspection and assignment data, the SDS will enable underwater vehicles or drones to be permanently deployed subsea.
The ONS Innovation Awards recognize the importance of cutting-edge technologies and solutions. The main objective of the ONS Innovation Awards is to promote efforts to improve or replace current solutions to make the global offshore petroleum sector more competitive and sustainable at all stages in the value chain. The 2020 jury received a total of 78 applicants from 11 different countries for this year’s awards. Finalists in addition to the winners included the following.
- ABB—Subsea power
- Schlumberger—Ora intelligent wireline formation testing platform
- ChampionX—Excelceor polymer flood technology
- Welltec—Welltec Annular Isolation (WAI) sleeve
SME Category:
- IK Group – AOGV (Add On Gate Valve)
- Empig AS– Always Clean Cooler System (ACS
- Amphibious Energy – Energy Pod autonomous energy container
- Innowell Solutions – Density Activated Recovery (DAR) lower completion tool
The 2020 ONS Innovation Awards jury consisted of representatives from the Research Council of Norway, Aker BP, the Oil & Gas Technology Centre (OGTC), the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers, National Oilwell Varco, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), Siemens Oil & Gas Offshore AS, and Horisont Energi.