In 2018 the Norwegian regulators challenged the Oil and Gas Operators to improve their knowledge and technology for detection and tracking of hydrocarbon leakage in their subsea fields, to detect small leakage before it reaches surface and track it in the water column. Regulations were already in place requiring leak detection and reporting, but there were significant gaps in capabilities, especially with regards to detecting smaller leakage, leak rate determination and tracking drift direction subsea.

Equinor took this challenge and together with Metas AS, progressed their earlier research, conducted since 2011 to create a pilot installation at Troll B’s H well site. This presentation will describe the findings of this pilot installation including: technical challenges faced, testing techniques developed, use of machine learning, and the field validated performance of the system that is currently approved as TRL4 in Equinor.

It will also discuss the ability of active sonar to be used for security monitoring of subsea infrastructure, including detection and tracking of trawls, dropped objects, gliders, ROV/AUVs, and other objects.