Offshore Projects News Roundup | October 25 – Site surveys in Philippines, UK North Sea and Gulf of Mexico plus construction start on future Dutch wind farm

A Dutch operator has completed survey works in support of a massive offshore wind project in the UK while recently awarded acquisition contracts cover parts of the western Philippines and the US Gulf of Mexico. Construction has meanwhile begun on a new wind farm off the Netherlands’ western coast.

Construction begins on Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind farm

Van Oord has begun construction activities at the future Hollandse Kust Noord wind farm off the western Dutch coast.

The construction commenced with the installation of the first of 70 monopiles.

Hollandse Kust Noord will have an installed capacity of 759 MW, generating at least 3.3 TWh per year. This equals enough renewable electricity for more than one million Dutch households. CrossWind, a joint venture between Shell and Eneco, plans to have the wind farm operational by 2023.

Sacgasco awards pre-drilling survey contract covering western Philippines

Australia-based energy company Sacgasco has confirmed the award of a contract for geophysical site survey works to be performed prior to the commencement of offshore drilling activities in the western Philippines.

Hurricane Geo Inspection Survey (HGIS) of Malaysia will execute the surveys, which will start in mid-November 2022.

The surveys will cover the Cadlao Oil Field and the Nandino Prospect, which are both located off Palawan province. Sacgasco holds interest in the blocks via wholly owned subsidiary Nido Petroleum Philippines.

Fugro wraps up site investigation at UK’s Dogger Bank South wind farm

Fugro has successfully completed fieldwork on a geophysical, geotechnical, and environmental site investigation contract for RWE Renewables’ Dogger Bank South (DBS) offshore wind farm and associated export cable routes.

DBS is located more than 110 kilometres off the east coast of Yorkshire in the North Sea and has the potential to generate renewable electricity for up to 3.4 million UK homes per year. The array area covers approximately 1,000 square kilometres with over 100 kilometres of proposed export cable routes, resulting in a total survey scope exceeding 20,000 kilometres of survey lines.

Fugro mobilised multiple vessels from its fleet to complete full coverage surveys. The works included seabed cone penetration tests (CPTs), sampling boreholes, multibeam echosounder surveys, and a large 2D ultra high-resolution seismic (UHRS) survey.

In addition to this, Fugro’s environmental surveys consisted of grab sampling, epibenthic trawling, and drop-down videos.

The acquired geo-data will be used to understand the site’s subsurface conditions, advise on geohazard risk mitigation, and identify a safe route for export cables.

Shearwater GeoServices tapped for US Gulf of Mexico OBN project with WesternGeco 

Shearwater GeoServices has been awarded a contract for an ocean bottom node (OBN) acquisition project in the US Gulf of Mexico under a frame agreement with WesternGeco.

The three-month survey will cover a nodal area of approximately 2,400 square kilometres.

Shearwater will deploy two source vessels to work on the project.