Engineering and riser specialist 2H Offshore, will receive a Spotlight on New Technology Award for its INTEGRIstick stress monitoring sensor at this year's Offshore Technology Conference.

These annual awards go to companies that present the industry with innovative new technologies that are potentially vital to future oil and gas production. The INTEGRIstick is used to monitor dynamic subsea structures where bending is a key source of fatigue.

The entry criteria for the awards stipulate that the technology must be less than two years old; innovative and capable of revolutionizing the offshore industry; proven through either full-scale application or prototype testing; and of broad interest to the industry. It must also provide significant benefits beyond existing technologies.

"It is an honor for us to be receiving such a prestigious award," said Stephen Hatton, Principal Director, 2H Offshore. "The INTEGRIstick is a good example of 2H's depth of understanding of both riser design and critical structural monitoring. The combination allows stepwise improvement in specification, operability and value to our customers."

The sensor incorporates strain gauges inside a corrosion-resistant metal housing and measures biplanar curvature to a resolution of 1 micro-strain, and can be used in water depths beyond 3000 m. The product's development was driven by the lack of reliable subsea strain monitoring solutions in the marketplace. The INTEGRIstick offers increased accuracy, improved reliability and substantially lower costs than its competitors. The device can be critical in detecting and quantifying structural response issues to prevent failure, thus reducing operational downtime.

“Working closely with Chevron we have integrated multiple INTEGRIstick sensors into a comprehensive online riser monitoring system installed on the production riser of Chevron's Tahiti platform in the Gulf of Mexico," said Hatton. "The results from this will provide Chevron with critical performance data, a key input to future integrity management programs."

The award will be accepted during a presentation at the Reliant Center in Houston, Texas, USA, on May 4.

Tags: 2H Offshore