Adverse weather frequently delays offshore operations, creating substantial commercial risk. The nascent marine energy sector feels the impact of this risk keenly and, Mojo Maritime has found that understanding how to mitigate this risk is not a simple matter.
Mojo Maritime’s planning software tool Mermaid (Marine Economic Risk Management Aid) has been created through years of hard earned operational experience.
Mermaid combines sound offshore installation packages with advanced analysis techniques developed through a detailed research and development campaign. Mermaid is designed specifically for the analysis of weather risk on offshore operations and its flexible, user orientated design allows a multitude of operations to be considered in high levels of detail. Mermaid analyses operations like a marine operations manager and provides useful, informative outputs which allow operation optimisation, risk mitigation and ultimately success.
Traditional methods of calculating weather downtime using probabilistic methods such as Monte Carlo analysis do not directly answer the question, are too simplistic and do not have sufficient detail for the marine operations planning in the detail required to build an accurate risk model. This approach can lead to flawed and misleading results. Mermaid analyses the fine detail of each operation against set parameters – this allows a baseline to be developed and multiple scenarios to be developed in the optimisation process.
As a validation exercise Mermaid has been used to analyse the historic installation of the foundations at the Egmond Aan Zee Offshore Wind Farm, located near Ijmuiden, Holland. Mermaid was used to consider the mobilisation, transportation of components, piling, lifting operation and grouting and demobilisation. By comparison of the Mermaid analysis to the actual installation cycle times it was seen that Mermaid performed exceptionally well, over predicting the project duration by less than 1% and accurately reflecting the downtime seen during the project.
By analysing work with multiple vessels, simultaneous operations, detailed operational tasks and marine warranty surveyor constraints. Mermaid models operations in a realistic manner. By considering multiple options, such as installation methods, device or foundation types or alternative vessels and ports, Mermaid can be used to select the most appropriate options for offshore work. This process leads to efficient project optimization, cost reduction and provides a robust engineering baseline to start prior to engaging expensive offshore assets.
Mojo Maritime’s Managing Director, Richard Parkinson , said “The analysis we can perform with Mermaid gives us invaluable knowledge of individual marine operations and allows cost and risk reduction to be performed early and successfully. The level of detail we can derive is unparalleled and has been effective in the development of emerging offshore technologies-1 am in no doubt that this level of planning will become the norm. It has been demonstrated that Mermaid is accurate, informative and powerful.”