The Australian office of Fugro GEOS has been awarded a contract by Woodside Energy Ltd to undertake a year-long metocean study along the proposed pipeline route for the Browse LNG Development which will run from the gas fields to the planned Kimberley LNG Precinct at James Price Point, about 60 km north of Broome in Western Australia.
"This is a major contract for our new Australian office, we are very pleased to be working with Woodside on this significant project," explains Mark Wimshurst, Australian Manager of Fugro GEOS. "Our role will be to undertake metocean measurement studies along the entire length of the proposed pipeline route from the fields to the proposed LNG Precinct."
The contract covers an onshore meteorological measurement programme and a nearshore and offshore metocean measurement programme. A 30m meteorological tower will be installed onshore to measure meteorological parameters and air quality in order to establish onsite baselines. Data from all the sensors on the tower will be transmitted by Iridium links and uploaded to a secure website for retrieval by the client.
The nearshore and offshore programme calls for the deployment of approximately 20 current meter moorings installed at between 8m and 200m water depths as well as two Fugro OCEANOR Wavescan buoys (with dual met masts and loggers), three directional waveriders (DWR's), long period wave recorders, tide gauges and surface current drifters. A number of the current meter moorings will include thermistor measurements to support the detection of solitons (internal waves).