Wednesday 24 January 2018

3-month contract to conduct a study into the use of the PB3 PowerBuoy for decommissioning operations is a significant step in OPT’s commercialization strategy

Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. announced today that the Company has signed an agreement with Premier Oil, an international oil and gas company, to study the feasibility of using the PB3 PowerBuoy for decommissioning operations in the North Sea. The contract outlines work that will determine the viability of using the PB3 for monitoring and guarding remaining wells and subsea equipment after removal of a floating production, storage and offloading vessel and prior to subsea decommissioning and/or well plugging & abandonment operations.

The PB3 would primarily be used to provide site monitoring and surveillance to prevent vessel intrusion and disturbance of remaining subsea infrastructure. The study will also evaluate the PB3’s ability to monitor well pressures and temperatures by connecting to subsea control modules. This added functionality could allow more precise planning and prioritization of plugging and abandonment activities by giving accurate real-time information on well integrity, while also enabling PMO to provide regulators with higher quality information on well conditions.