Potential Savings of Billions of Dollars

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Australian research will potentially save the oil and gas industry billions of dollars by predicting the effects of future climate change on the seabed.

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s (CSIRO) Wealth from Oceans Flagship and its partners have developed Sedsim, a high-performance computing program used to predict seabed changes over long periods of time. This project draws together CSIRO's expertise in Petroleum Resources and Atmospheric Research, with international input from the US based Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), Geoscience Australia (GA) and, in the early stages of the project, Stanford University.

In a recent statement from the CSIRO, Craig Roy, Director of Wealth from Oceans Flagship said that the research is a world first, with the Flagship setting the pace globally in seabed modelling.

The research team believes this could have a major impact in predicting the risk to billion dollar infrastructure.. One of the main applications will be to assist in the appropriate design of oil and gas pipelines, in both low and high risk areas.

Sedsim seabed modelling brings together an advanced sediment transport model, capable of predicting sediment movement over decades. It can also be applied globally using a state of the art numeric model to predict sediment erosion, transport and deposition in a wide variety of sedimentary environments, including shallow to deep marine. The program can model the way sediment responds to waves, current and tidal effects.

In the next decade, it is predicted that up to $10 billion may be spent on thousands of kilometres of offshore pipelines worldwide. Substantial environmental and costs savings could be made if these pipelines can be designed to suit both the present sub-sea environment and the future seabed conditions.

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David

david.taylor@agarcarlyon.com">editor@agarcarlyon.com