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MMS seeks to understand mysterious ocean currents Three-year contract to record ocean currents over OCS goes to Mexican institute; industry workshop set for Sept. 30 to discuss monitoring Ray Tyson Petroleum News Houston Correspondent
The U.S. Minerals Management Service has taken on the challenge of better understanding the Gulf of Mexico’s powerful and often unpredictable ocean currents, which often disrupt oil and gas drilling operations.
For one, The Center for Scientific Investigation and Higher Education in Ensenada, Mexico, has been awarded a three-year, $1.73-million contract by MMS to record ocean currents throughout the water column over the outer continental shelf and slope to obtain a three-dimensional picture of the circulation of the Western Gulf in Mexican waters. The program includes 13 months of field observations, MMS said.
Moreover, MMS has scheduled an industry workshop for Sept. 30 in Houston, Texas, to discuss a new monitoring program designed to improve understanding of ocean currents that can affect deepwater operations across the entire Gulf of Mexico.
U.S. oil and gas leasing in the Western Gulf of Mexico extends to deepwater near the Mexico border in water depths exceeding 6,500 feet and remains an area with limited oceanographic and current data, MMS said. The coupling of the Mexican study with a previously awarded MMS study on deepwater currents in the U.S. portion of the region would add significantly to the understanding of the physical oceanography of the Western Gulf, the agency said.
“The circulation in the Western Gulf of Mexico is extremely energetic, not only from motions generated locally, but because many features of Gulf circulation originate in the eastern basin from the interactions of the Loop Current with its surroundings,” said Chris Oynes, MMS regional director.
He said warm eddies generated from loop currents propagate westward through the Central Gulf or along its northern slope and dissipate along the Mexican coast.
“The Eastern Gulf of Mexico has been studied extensively, but few direct observations of currents have been made off its western shore, especially off Mexico, a region fundamental to understanding of the Gulf’s dynamics,” Oynes said. Agency needs data for planning Because there is a potential for more exploration by the oil and gas industry, which currently includes MMS permit approvals for 100 exploratory wells in the Alaminos Canyon and Port Isabel areas of the Western Gulf alone, MMS said it will need better ocean current data from the area to properly plan.
Successful completion of the study would ensure that understanding deepwater Western Gulf “is coincident with future exploration and development trends,” MMS said.
MMS said the Western Gulf marks the boundary where loop current rings and eddies strongly interact with the seafloor and dissipate, adding that “significant amounts” of hazardous drifting material in the Gulf also land in the region.
Under the program with industry, operating companies would collect and share ocean current data from deepwater drilling and production sites, assuring operators and drilling contractors have appropriate information on existing and forecasted current conditions, MMS said.
The data and forecasts would enable operators to curtail drilling operations before currents build to threatening levels, MMS said. The monitoring program also would help in the design of deepwater production structures, MMS added.
MMS is proposing a two-year pilot program, with a mid-term evaluation workshop to assess the program. Data are already being collected at numerous sites and the pilot program will be fully operational by March 1, 2005, MMS said.
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