Wide Area Active Monitoring (WAAM) Subsea Leak Detection

Introduction

Imenco’s Wide Area Active Monitoring (WAAM) System for Oil and Gas, is our latest development in our suite of products for subsea acoustic monitoring. The system is designed for subsea installation, detecting even small amounts of oil and gas in ranges beyond 1,000 meters. Various alternative hardware applications and sensors are available with horizontal scanning selectable from 0 to 360 degrees and 0 to 90 degrees vertical for monitoring one or more locations in the same area.

For analyzing detected leakages, an in-house developed software system is used. In order to maximize performance and minimize operational interruptions, the WAAM System software incorporates machine learning. This allows tracking of all acoustic responses, classification and analysis to determine if an alarm should be reported or merely an interesting data point recorded for future analysis.

If leakage is identified, the system will alarm and begin reporting approximate leakage rates. Additional information is available on demand, so as not to distract the operator. This information includes location of leak, plume size, distribution, direction of travel, and much more.

Wide Area Active Monitoring (WAAM) System provides confidence in the integrity of your subsea system and very early indications if there is a reason to doubt that integrity.

It measures > 1,000 meters in radius, 360 degrees around (horizontal) and from 0 to 90 degrees in the vertical plane, resulting in one unit monitoring >3.14 km2 of the subsea field.

The System uses tried and tested sensors combined with an advanced machine learning software which gives the customer a choice in where to monitor, when to report and what level to raise an alarm, as well as which types are targets are of interest: oil, gas, CO2, fish, ROVs, AUVs, natural seeps, periodic natural release, etc.

WAAM has been developed with a major subsea operator as a partner and a key attribute desired was the elimination of false alarms they have experienced from their existing systems and several other monitoring systems they have field tested. This is overcome in the WAAM System by using the machine learning capability of the software to map the area upon installation and establish a baseline using the active sensors. Depending on the complexity of the area to be monitored it may take a few hours or a few days to build the baseline.