Ocean Power Technologies Signs Contract With Premier Oil For A PowerBuoy™ Deployment in the Central North Sea
Friday 29 June 2018
Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. announced that the Company has signed a contract with Premier Oil, to supply a PowerBuoy™ for a deployment in the Huntington Field, one of Premier Oil’s offshore fields in the Central North Sea. The contract calls for a nine-month lease including an initial three-month trial, followed by a six-month extension upon successful completion of the initial trial. The contract also includes an option to extend the initial nine-month lease. The project is expected to start in June of 2018 and deployment is anticipated for October of 2018.
The OPT PowerBuoy™ will be deployed in the Central North Sea and will serve as a self-sustaining intelligent platform to provide communications and remote monitoring services. During the deployment, Premier Oil will explore the PowerBuoy™ capabilities and its ability to monitor the local environment and alert shipping of its position.
The project is also backed by the Aberdeen-based Oil & Gas Technology Centre (OGTC), which has provided co-funding, support and technical input to the monitoring requirements for the buoy.
In parallel with this deployment, an evaluation is under way with Premier Oil to consider another longer-term deployment where, in addition to site monitoring services, the PowerBuoy™ would be utilized to power and communicate with subsea control modules to monitor pressures and temperatures within the wells. The planning for this second phase would commence in late 2018, with a potential installation in the summer of 2019.
In addition to the recently announced Eni S.p.A. contract, this is the second contract with an offshore oil and gas operator this year, which together provide the potential for over $3.1 million in revenues for the Company based on all contracted pre-trial work, trial deployments, service and support, optional trial periods and services, and the option for both parties to purchase the PowerBuoysTM during the contract periods.