Sonardyne’s Fusion 6G to Support Egina Subsea Construction

Total, operator for the Egina oil field offshore Nigeria, together with its construction and survey partners, has successfully installed a Fusion 6G subsea positioning network to support its development of the $15 billion project.

Supplied by Sonardyne UK, the acoustic technology specified for Egina, which is still ongoing, included a field-wide array of Compatt 6 seabed transponders.

Fusion 6G is Sonardyne’s Long BaseLine (LBL) acoustic positioning system, used for subsea construction and surveys.

Planning for Fusion’s deployment at Egina had begun several months earlier and involved senior project managers and surveyors from Total and its sub-contractors, working closely with personnel from Sonardyne’s own Survey Support Group (SSG).

The work undertaken by the SGG for Egina included analysing the proposed location for each of the Compatt transponders in the seabed network, and in doing so, verify that there was clear line of sight between each transponder in order that they can reliably range to each other. In addition, the SSG team mapped out seabed coverage and the expected positioning performance of the Compatts at all points of interest. This process involves specialist software and also helps to identify the optimum quantity of transponders that are needed to meet a project’s positioning specification.

Frederic Auger, Chief Surveyor at Total E&P, said: “The array installation and subsequent UFR campaign performed at the Egina field, has proven to be an extremely successful demonstration of Fusion’s capabilities. Off the back of it, we will be using it to support ongoing field construction activities throughout the rest of this year and into the 2016 season.”

 “The system’s quick setup and deployment, meant that the savings in vessel time alone has more than justified our decision to trust in Sonardyne’s low-risk digital technology platform.”

“The successful results we’ve seen at Egina, echo those from similar projects around the world. Fusion 6G saves time, lowers risk and delivers operational cost savings – something that is on every ones’ minds more than ever at the moment,” said Aude Kuchly, Sales Manager for Sonardyne in France. “Egina serves as another great example of how planning, rehearsal and training leads to operational success.”

Engina Field

Located 150 kilometres off the coast of Nigera, in water depths of up to 1,750 metres, the Egina field covers an area of around 500 square miles. Infrastructure will include an FPSO, an oil offloading terminal and subsea production systems that will include 52 kilometres of oil and water injection flowlines, 12 flexible jumpers, 20 kilometres of gas export pipelines, 80 kilometres of umbilicals, and subsea manifolds. Production at the field is expected to reach 200,000 barrels per day at its peak.