Petroleum Research Newfoundland and Labrador

Academic and professional disciplines form societies, associations, groups and networks to grow communities, build culture, create and share knowledge, develop and recruit talent, collaborate and advocate for its members. This article details the creation and initial development of a special interest group for Human Factors, specifically focused on high-risk safety-critical industries in Eastern Canada. The HFC Canada network was conceptualized by recognizing an opportunity for collaboration and Human Factors knowledge sharing among multidisciplinary stakeholders within the offshore energy and maritime sectors in Eastern Canada as they transitioned toward digitalized, remote, and autonomous operations. The impetus and underlying motivation is to foster collaboration and communication across key stakeholders and better understand their processes within these high-risk, safety-critical domains. This article details the initial formation of the network, operational structure and activities, including initial feedback and perspectives from different stakeholders, lessons learned, and future direction.

ABSTRACT In recent years, access to freely available and commercial satellite imagery, such as Sentinel-1, RADARSAT-2, COSMO-SkyMed, and TerrsSAR-X, increased to the level where most global waters are observed at least once per day by one of these satellite platforms. The availability of this data combined with technological advancements in machine-learning and smart image segmentation allows for the potential to automatically detect oil spills and reduce the likelihood of false alarms. This improved satellite monitoring could result in early discovery of releases and the ability to launch a quicker response to mitigate potential damages. Numerical modeling will be used in combination with the detection results to determine the fate and trajectory of the oil as well as to hindcast where the oil was released. Implementing models into the process facilitates an effective response and incident investigation by determining where the oil is spreading and discovering where the oil originated. In 2019, Petroleum Research Newfoundland and Labrador (PRNL) launched a project led by C-CORE and RPS titled SpillSight to conduct a study into this technology for automatically detecting spills by satellite and modelling the outputs.

Abstract With the increased focus in the US on green technology, there are several offshore wind farms being planned in the US waters to meet the goal of utilizing renewable energy sources for consumers. The offshore wind industry can benefit substantially by leveraging the design and analysis experience from oil and gas platforms in the United States and from offshore wind turbines in European waters. However, no offshore wind turbines have ever been installed in U.S. waters where several unique challenges must be addressed, particularly with respect to how tropical storms may alter the design basis. This paper presents the engineering challenges that need to be addressed in analyzing offshore wind turbines to include the metocean loads imposed where both the aerodynamic and hydrodynamic loads may be equally significant with particular attention to U.S. characteristics. Analysis techniques available for offshore oil and platforms can be utilized for assessment of offshore wind turbine structures. Specifically, the engineering insights on ultimate strength analysis and the implicit safety levels as warranted in design codes can be used to inform the design process for offshore wind turbines, giving due regard to the hurricane risk present in U.S. waters that changes with geography. Introduction and Background This paper presents key results on safety level assessments for offshore wind turbines from recently completed studies, References (1) and (2), that compared two design guidelines for applicability to U.S. waters. The methodology and examples presented can be used to better analyze and design, for adequate structural safety, offshore wind turbine structures to be considered for deployment in US waters. The objective of this paper is to present the range of metocean loads present at a U.S. offshore site, and the nonlinear dynamic response of a monopile- foundation offshore wind turbine, when subject to operational and extreme loads. Insights into shallow water depth effects, soil-pile interaction modeling, modeling of aerodynamic wind loads along with concurrent hydrodynamic wave and current loads, and the analyzed physical behavior of the structure will be presented. This paper presents the following sequence of studies to develop the reliability assessment for offshore wind turbines in the United States:Direct comparison of safety factors in the two design guidelines (American Petroleum Institute (API) vs. International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC); more on this follows) studied,Comparison of reliability levels achieved for a generic offshore wind turbine structure for the two guidelines, for four sites/regions, andComparison of reliability levels for two types of offshore wind turbine substructures at a specific site designed based on both API and IEC guidelines API vs. IEC - A comparison of safety levels for US Waters The two design guidelines being studied here are:The American Petroleum Institute guidelines for fixed offshore platforms based on working stress design (WSD) methodology; see Reference (3).International Electrotechnical Committee guidelines for offshore wind turbines (OWTs) based on load and resistance factor (LRFD) methods primarily developed for use in European conditions, see Reference (4).

Abstract Nova Scotia's large offshore area of ~250,000 square kilometers has been explored since the late 1960s. On the continental shelf, two oil fields have been produced and abandoned, five gas fields are under production and a Jurassic carbonate bank gas project is scheduled to begin production in 2010. With the exception of the successful carbonate bank play, recent shelf exploration drilling efforts ending in 2004 failed to identify any new commercially viable fields. A six well drilling effort on the deep water slope ending in 2004 mainly targeted Cretaceous turbidite sands in water depths up to 2091 m. Gas was discovered in the deep water, but not in economic quantities. Well results indicated that the geology of this area is poorly understood. The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board (CNSOPB) has undertaken numerous initiatives in order to encourage further exploration both on the shelf and slope. These include:improving the terms and conditions for exploration licences,increasing the CNSOPB's geoscience staff and increasing the publication of G&G evaluations,providing online access to digital geoscience data via the web. The first CNSOPB nominated " Call for Bids" parcels offshore Nova Scotia implementing these new licence terms and conditions, closed in June 2008 with total work expenditure bids of $216,800,000. These results also led to a new company becoming active in Nova Scotia's offshore. New Call for Bids interpretation packages have advanced the public geological knowledge of the offshore and will allow companies to enter the area with an advanced understanding of the geology. With almost half a billion cubic feet of gas a day flowing from offshore Nova Scotia to the eastern portions of Canada and the United States, Nova Scotia represents an important region for present and future gas supply. Providing advanced geological interpretations and the improving the terms and conditions for new exploration licences will make it more attractive for companies to explore in this area. Introduction Nova Scotia's offshore area is 850 km long with a shelf extending over 200 km to the continental slope break as shown in Figure 1. The slope extends for another 100 km to 4000 m of water depth and a further 200 to 300 km to the jurisdictional limit. Out of the total 204 wells drilled to date, 127 have been exploration wells. This drilling has resulted in 23 Significant Discoverise.

Abstract To achieve first oil production offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, many challenges had to be overcome, including conducting exploration and development activities in an area with limited infrastructure, resolution of a jurisdictional dispute, design of production systems to operate in the presence of icebergs and pack ice. These have been overcome. The success of exploration and production activities demonstrates that despite the presence of ice, these activities can be conducted in a safe, environmentally sound, cost-effective and profitable manner. In addition, significant potential existed to increase production from this lightly explored area. Figure 1: Area Comparison, Newfoundland - North Sea (Available in full paper) Introduction Oil and gas exploration in Eastern Canada's offshore Newfoundland and Labrador area, and the Norway and UK sectors of the North Sea, began about the same time. While first gas and oil production began offshore UK in 1970 and offshore Norway in 1975, it did not occur offshore Newfoundland and Labrador until 1997. First oil production offshore Newfoundland and Labrador was achieved only after several technical and political challenges were resolved. These included: conducting operations in environmental conditions similar to the North Sea with the presence of ice; lack of infrastructure to support exploration, development and production activities; jurisdictional dispute between the Federal and Provincial governments; and a boundary dispute between the Governments of Canada and France. Oil and gas exploration activity began onshore western Newfoundland in the mid-1800s. There was some success with a small quantity of oil produced and processed. It was not until much later that the potential for oil and gas offshore was widely recognized. In 1965, with the issuance of federal exploratory permits, exploration activity offshore Newfoundland and Labrador was initiated. The offshore area is large, about 185 million hectares, and contains in excess of 15 basins and subbasins with diverse geology. About half of this area is prospective for petroleum, and several basins have confirmed petroleum systems. Figure 1 presents a comparison of the offshore Newfoundland and Labrador area to that of the United Kingdom and Norway offshore areas. At the time of issuance of the first federal permits, there existed a jurisdictional dispute between the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador over ownership of the petroleum resources. As well there was a boundary dispute between the Governments of Canada and France over an offshore area of the French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Despite these disputes, exploration activities continued with industry reporting to Federal and Provincial government regulatory agencies. In the early years, little infrastructure was available to support exploration, development or production activities. In essence, the area was a green field site. The regulatory system was also at an early development stage and industry had to develop procedures and strategies to cope with the seasonal presence of pack-ice and icebergs. The first exploration well, drilled by Pan American and Imperial in 1966, encountered gas shows.

Self-provided housing is a major form of housing supply in nearly all the developed countries of W. Europe, N. America and Australasia. In many, like France or Germany, it accounted for the major part of housing output during the 1980s. Contrary to many opinions self-provision is not associated with backwardness, peripherality, or lack of market development. Rather, self-provided housing is often a major element in the expansion of European metropoles and sometimes reaches the heights of 'post-fordist' industrial organisation and product development. Self-provision lowers the money cost of housing and usually ensures higher quality, and in this way enlarges the housing choices of middle-income nuclear families. Materials and land costs remain substantial barriers to self-provision, and the more disadvantaged groups are usually unable to participate. However, the presence of a large self-provided sector can indirectly improve their housing position. Housing cycles will be calmed, spatial polarisation will be less severe, and there will be less competition from the more advantaged in rental markets. A significant self-provision sector can also have important effects on the housebuilding industry, both through direct competition and by presenting a different market environment. The net result is likely to be a decline in speculative behaviour and a concentration on longer-term efficiency. Finally, there are various 'models' for a successful self-provided housing sector, where the necessary social support is organised in different ways by different agencies. These will affect the level and distribution of self-provision. Given the importance of self-provided housing in all these ways, it merits considerably further research than has been the case so far.