The Honourable Andrew Furey, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, along with the Honourable Andrew Parsons, Minister of Industry, Energy and Technology, today announced financial support for 26 supply and service projects through the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Oil and Gas Industry Recovery Assistance Fund, totaling approximately $35.5 million. The announcement was held at Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s.
Of the 26 approved projects, five are non-commercial and 21 are commercial. The projects are expected to create or maintain up to 230 Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs) in the province.
One of the recipients announced today was Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University, which received $1,309,955 for a project to support the establishment of a Subsea Centre of Excellence. When completed, this centre will allow operators to improve environmental safety and reduce the likelihood of damage or spills during routine offshore maintenance work in a simulated North Atlantic operating environment. See other recipients in backgrounder below.
These projects were funded as a result of an agreement reached in September 2020 between the Provincial and Federal Governments to provide $320 million to support direct and indirect employment in the provincial oil and gas sector, as well as activities that generate environmental or co-benefits. A total of $284.5 million has been committed for operators of existing offshore installations.
To support the recovery of the industry and provide direct assistance for the local oil and gas sector value chain, government committed at least $32 million of the funding to support oil and gas supply and service sector projects. Earlier this year, the Department of Industry, Energy and Technology accepted funding applications through a competitive Call for Proposals. Projects were chosen following a comprehensive evaluation process.
Approved projects span across the full spectrum of the local oil and gas sector value chain, support direct and indirect employment in the province or the offshore area, generate environmental benefits or co-benefits, and support existing oil and gas installations or infrastructure linked to an existing installation.
Quotes
“As we prepare for the transition to renewable energy, we do it knowing that oil and gas will be needed for the foreseeable future. Our government will continue to work to support the women and men who work in the oil and gas industry as we collaborate with industry to support new innovative ideas to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Honourable Andrew Furey
Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador
“These projects focus on industry-led activities that will sustain the province’s offshore oil and gas industry in the short-term and drive the recovery of the oil and gas sector over the long term while generating environmental benefits or co-benefits as we plan for transition.”
Honourable Andrew Parsons
Minister of Industry, Energy and Technology
“This support for our Subsea Centre of Excellence at The Launch allows our university and our industry collaborators to leverage our oceans expertise and position the province as a prominent research, testing and training location for ocean technology on a global scale,”
Dr. Robert Shea, Vice-president
Memorial University (Marine Institute), pro tempore
“As we partake in the energy evolution and ready for the next phase of our offshore oil and gas industry and the benefits it will provide, I look forward to seeing these innovative projects by Noia members move forward. I am especially excited to begin work on the Net Zero Project as we collaboratively strive to achieve our net zero carbon emission objectives.”
Charlene Johnson
Noia CEO
Media contacts
Meghan McCabe
Office of the Premier
709-729-3960
[email protected]
Eric Humber
Industry, Energy and Technology
709-729-5777, 725-9655
[email protected]
Kim Thornhill
Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University
709-778-0544
[email protected]
Ken Morrissey
Noia
709-725-5172
[email protected]
BACKGROUNDER
Approved Offshore Oil and Gas Industry Recovery Assistance Fund Projects
1. Pangeo Subsea Inc.
Project Title: GeoTrac
Funding Amount: $4,795,000
This project is the development of a new product/service called GeoTrac. Pangeo will leverage its approved Canada’s Ocean Supercluster GeoScan Project by expanding the platform’s capabilities with technology for the acquisition of geotechnical/soil resistivity data and technology, allowing their data to be transmitted to an onshore processing centre in real time.
2. C-Core
Project Title: Subsea Ice Interaction and Barriers to Energy Development
Funding Amount: $2,961,710
The project is the second phase of previous projects focused on developing marginal oil and gas fields by finding alternatives to flow line trenching and weak infrastructure links. In this phase, C-CORE aims to expand on their results by studying more cost effective and carbon neutral solutions using cables, flow lines and pipelines to mitigate seabed challenges. Their goal is to use green energy alternatives to electrify offshore infrastructure and find solutions to develop the natural gas on the Grand Banks and surrounding regions.
3. Wood Group Canada, Inc.
Project Title: Development of an Autonomous Robotic Inspection Service for on Land and Topsides Oil and Gas Facilities
Funding Amount: $2,938,773
This project will establish an autonomous robotic inspection and maintenance service offering for Wood in the province. It will be focused on supporting onshore and offshore oil and gas infrastructure assets of Wood’s current and future customers. The project has four major phases including data analysis, robotic tests, software development for integration and full integration test.
4. Kraken Robotic Systems Inc.
Project Title: Fast Remote 3D Digital Inspection (FR3DI) Technology Demonstration
Funding Amount: $2,256,323
Kraken has been exploring solutions to continue inspections with less or zero Kraken personnel travelling offshore. The project’s goals include establishing a FR3DI Marine Services Division in the province and hire the necessary personnel; implement remote operations procedures; demonstrate to provincial oil and gas operators the benefits of using Kraken’s proprietary laser scanning technology to support inspection, maintenance and repair activities and increase the province’s offshore customer base for Kraken and expand into the global market.
5. Atlantic XL Inc.
Project Title: Additive Manufacturing for Offshore Newfoundland and Labrador
Funding Amount: $2,191,933
This project will use new manufacturing technology in the supply of niche parts to the local offshore industry, primarily targeting long lead international items, obsolescence, and prototyping. As a permanent (life of equipment) installation, this will be the first of its kind in offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, with the potential to grow significantly and expand to other industries.
6. Amplemann Canada Limited
Project Title: Revolutionizing Offshore Personnel Transfer – Ampelmann Motion Compensated Walk to Work (W2W) Gangway Technology
Funding Amount: $2,116,000
This project will conduct full-scale sea trials with the Ampelmann Walk to Work Gangway system that would be installed on an offshore support vessels (OSV). The goal of the proposed project will be to increase the technology’s operational parameters from the current maximum sea states of between 2.5 meters and 3.0 meters to a maximum workable state of 4.5 meters or higher. The project will also identify potential risks associated with operating in the North Atlantic environment. Risks such as freezing conditions, fog and other extreme conditions will be evaluated, and system developments investigated, to reduce and eliminate these risks.
7. Energy Research & Innovation Newfoundland & Labrador
Project Title: The Open Offshore
Funding Amount: $1,981,032
This project consists of five related industry-led initiatives, specifically; (1) Develop a provincial offshore communications infrastructure strategy to provide ready access to high speed, low latency, and redundant bandwidth; (2) Identify the value proposition/feasibility of a regional metocean monitoring network; (3) Develop a data framework, implementation plan and pilots for the collection, analysis and distribution of offshore oil and gas data; (4) Identify offshore digitalization technologies that will reduce or eliminate GHG emissions/costs, hence improving the industry’s global competitiveness, and; (5) Establish working groups to cultivate alignment on initiatives between key offshore stakeholders on digitalization and related issues such as emissions reduction.
8. Fugro Canada Corp.
Project Title: Geo Data Remote Operations Center (ROC)
Funding Amount: $1,959,984
An ROC is an ultra-modern communications hub that houses the communication systems, hardware, software, and personnel to allow offshore and remote operations in a safe and secure onshore environment. The project will upgrade existing onshore facilities located at Pippy Place, St. John’s into a ROC. In doing so, it will upgrade offshore installation equipment on existing client vessels/FPSOs, provide remote operations for these clients to demonstrate reduction in cost, time and carbon emission, while improving safety/quality and expanding services to other operators locally and abroad.
9. Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador
Project Title: Drilling: A Data Analytics Approach to Energy and Safety Improvements
Funding Amount: $1,863,329
This project will research extensive current drilling data provided by ExxonMobil to make drilling operations safer and more energy efficient. The multidisciplinary project team will focus on how to reduce emissions through analyzing drilling operations to increase energy efficiencies and improve safety by predicting changes in operation parameters. There will be two main goals of the research, emissions reductions and energy efficiency, as well as safety improvements.
10. ENAIMCO Management Limited
Project Title: AIMaaS Development Project
Funding Amount: $1,385,475
This project will offer expertise and digital services to improve asset management in the province’s offshore oil and gas industry. The project’s objective is to develop a comprehensive Asset Integrity Management as a service (AIMaaS) product. Asset Integrity Management (AIM) is the continuous process by which owners inspect, measure, monitor, test, maintain and remediate their operating infrastructure throughout its service life (from design through decommissioning). The total service will be comprised of 10 modules.
11. Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University
Project Title: Subsea Centre of Excellence Development
Funding Amount: $1,309,955
The project will support the establishment of a Subsea Centre of Excellence that attracts industry producers and support organizations by providing equipment and support for training. The Centre for Excellence will allow operators to improve environmental safety by providing training and research opportunities that simulate the North Atlantic operating environment. Through the proposed project, the Fisheries and Marine Institute will install both a subsea XMAS tree and jumper shifting tool, along with a closed pipeline and the potential for the establishment of an Onshore Control and Command Centre to provide simulations for operators in the offshore industry.
12. Oceans Limited
Project Title: Research to Assist Offshore Operators to Comply With New Adverse Weather Guidelines
Funding Amount: $1,235,622
This project will carry out a research program and develop weather forecasting technology to assist offshore oil and gas platforms to comply with the new Adverse Weather Guidelines. This project will also provide better wind forecasting for helicopter landings, crane operations and other activities that are weather sensitive.
13. Newfoundland & Labrador Oil & Gas Industries Association Inc. (Noia)
Project Title: The Net Zero Project
Funding Amount: $1,041,264
This project is a collaboration within the energy and environmental industries, led by Noia and econext, to drive economic growth, diversification, investment, and awareness through the lens of sustainability in the province by facilitating the development, demonstration, and adoption of clean growth strategies and technologies. The Net Zero Project which will firmly set the stage for the offshore oil and gas industry to take a leadership role in the province’s energy future.
14. Cahill Fabrication Structural Limited
Project Title: Building Newfoundland and Labrador Capability for Fabrication of GRP Structures
Funding Amount: $1,007,119
This project will be in completed in two phases with the goal of qualifying Cahill Fabrication’s facility and staff to produce locally Glass Reinforced Plastics (GRP)/Composite products. Phase One is a study to define and detail the requirements to begin fabrication of GRP/Composite Structures in the province, and Phase Two is completion of the Training, Equipment Procurement and Pilot Production.
15. LNG Newfoundland and Labrador Limited
Project Title: Jeanne d’Arc Basin Natural Gas Development and Export
Funding Amount: $1,000,000
This project’s main objective is to determine the requirements of offshore gas production systems. An Offshore Gas Export Hub and Upstream Infrastructure concept evaluation, gas availability and a schedule study will be executed with the involvement of offshore operators.
16. Laurentide Controls (Atlantic Controls Ltd.)
Project Title: Remote Condition Monitoring & Precision Maintenance Center for
Newfoundland and Labrador Oil and Gas
Funding Amount: $984,930
This project will build a Remote Condition Monitoring Centre and Precision Maintenance Training Facility, purposely built to serve the provincial oil and gas industry. The project includes building custom training material for the operators and technicians in a state-of-the-art precision maintenance training centre. This project also includes IT infrastructure, installation of new equipment, hiring and training specialists, marketing these new services, and promoting the benefits to local oil and gas producers.
17. Score Canada Limited
Project Title: Wireless Sensors for Valve through Leak Detection and Quantification
Funding Amount: $879,400
This project will provide further research and enhancements to a suite of three products that are currently offered to operators within the provinces offshore. The wireless valve through leakage detection and quantification project will enhance the company’s Midas Sensor technology by permanently installing wired acoustic emissions sensor to locate and quantify emissions leakage in current installations. The sensors will be connected to Score’s V-MAP System to enable analysis and trending of the leakage data from many valves and combine this with other valve monitoring sensors and process data from the plant.
18. Tenaris Global Services (Canada) Inc.
Project Title: Dopeless Self Contained Unit Installation
Funding Amount: $716,940
This project will install automated machinery, specifically a Dopeless® Self Contained Unit at Brown Offshore’s new St. John’s facility. The unit allows the Dopeless® coating to be applied in a fully automatic process in a controlled industrial environment. The process guarantees that the exact amount of lubricant is applied to each connection, whereas in standard operations thread compounds are applied manually in the field with a brush.
19. DF Barnes Fabrication Ltd.
Project Title: Installation and Operation of a Large Envelope 5-axis CNC Milling Centre
Funding Amount: $623,278
This project will establish a full capacity, 5-axis CNC Milling Service to will satisfy an existing service gap between the local industry machining capabilities for providing large, complex machining services to the province’s offshore oil and gas industry.
20. Pardy’s Waste Management and Industrial Services Limited
Project Title: Water Based Drilling Fluid Storage Facility
Funding Amount: $500,000
This project will build a twenty tank water based drilling fluid storage facility in Donavan’s Industrial Park. The current and expanded facilities will warehouse new and reconditioned drilling fluids for drilling applications in the province’s offshore oil and gas industry.
21. AltoMaxx Technologies Inc.
Project Title: Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement (UTM) Arm Development
Funding Amount: $420,190
This project will develop a pneumatic arm for mounting on a carbon fiber caged confined space drone. The RPAS will be capable of flying with the pneumatic arm in a retracted position or hovering with it in an extended position. Further, an UTM gauge mounted on the arm will be safely within the cage. Once the desired surface is reached, the RPAS hovers at a safe and constant distance from the surface and the pneumatic arm extends, allowing the UTM gauge to measure the targeted surface.
22. qualiTEAS Inc.
Project Title: Development of Supervised Machine Learning Model to Automate Corrosion and Pit Detection in 3D Reconstructed Image
Funding Amount: $396,239
The goal of the project is to continue software development that incorporates a machine learning (ML) model, which can quantitatively detect corrosion through analyzing images of subsea assets and (3D) reconstructions from monoscopic videos. The end result is to commercialize a solution to aid in the automation of corrosion, pit and other anomaly detection from 2D/3D reconstructed images, or images extracted from videoclip datasets
23. Aker Solutions Canada Inc.
Project Title: Improved Local Marine Simulation Capability and Competency with Export Sales Potential
Funding Amount: $388,820
This project is a collaboration with the Fisheries and Marine Institute’s Centre for Marine Simulation (CMS) as a key delivery partner in further developing marine simulation capability and competency within the province. This project will directly serve and support existing and future local offshore oil and gas installations, as well as develop skill sets/products that can compete in offering support from St. John’s to international oil and gas projects. Marine simulations provide opportunity to test and refine operational plans in a controlled setting allowing for validation, scrutiny and improvements.
24. DyTech Offshore Project Management
Project Title: Offshore Flare Tip Change Outs
Funding Amount: $221,100
This project will expand DyTech’s business service offerings by developing technology and personnel required to physically change out flare tips on offshore oil and gas production platforms. Working closely with local partners, DyTech will design/manufacture a new flare tip guide and produce a full-trained, skilled team to change out operator flare tips on request, in a timely manner, and within a reasonable cost.
25. A. Harvey & Company Limited.
Project Title: Container Repair & Upgrade Project
Funding Amount: $200,818
This project will undertake repairs to a portion (32) of the container fleet to upgrade them to meet DNV certification standards. This fleet is used for transportation of supplies and equipment to the various offshore installations operating in the province. The goal of the project is to maintain the container fleet inventory and be in a position to provide both current and new operators in the offshore with the required DNV certified containers.
26. Intecsea
Project Title: Evaluation of Floating Wind Technology to Reduce Emissions in Newfoundland and Labrador’s Offshore Hydrocarbon Industry
Funding Amount: $84,760
This research project is focused on the suitability of potential offshore floating wind concepts in the provinces offshore to provide electrification of the production platforms. The research will be tailored to the harsh North Atlantic environment to account for sea and ice conditions and build upon prior research completed by the company (Evaluating the Technical Feasibility of Wind Energy to Electrify Oil and Gas Production Facilities Offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada [2020]).
Source: Government of Newfoundland & Labrador | This text was excerpted from the media outlet cited on November 23, 2021 and is provided to Noia members for information purposes only. Any opinion expressed therein is neither attributable to nor endorsed by Noia.
