Weather Forecast model/services for improved safety and profitability in Oil&Gas industry in West Africa

Purpose and goal

The aim of the project was to broaden Ignitia´s product suite with new services aimed at sectors other than agriculture, which is the company´s main market today. The project has delivered an automated squall warning system, based on thunderstorm identfication from lightning and satellite data, combined with numerical model predictions and statistics, in order to produce short but detailed forecasts. The service was developed with the offshore industry in mind, but will also be launched in 2017 for a broader client base in West Africa.

Expected results and effects

Ignitia has through the project been able to integrate products and services for different time scales, requiring different scientific approaches. At short time scales, an automated statistical/deterministic algorithm is used, while the numerical model produces the longer term probabilistic weather forecasts. This means that we are able to provide weather data with a precision that was previously unattainable in the West African region. We predict this to have a major impact on critical decision-making capabilities.

Planned approach and implementation

By having a continuous dialogue with anticipated end-users in the offshore sector, R&D personnel at Aalborg University, and Furuno (weather radar manufacturer), we have been able to iterate a solution for a robust weather radar to be placed offshore, that will feed our nowcast system with data. Due to installation delays, we have developed a stand-alone solution based on other datasets that deliver equivalent information to our end-users according to their needs until the radar system has been properly installed.