Cameron’s Cognition package provides new way to monitor subsea BOP

Cameron debuted the Cognition Stack Instrumentation Infrastructure Package and the EVO 300 Bonnettechnology at the 2014 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston this week.

The Cognition Package is a response to the industry’s growing need for condition-based monitoring and predictive maintenance. It offers a new way to monitor subsea BOP stack functions from the surface while the stack is deployed subsea. It also provides a network of new sensors, resilient communication paths to transmit sensor data to the surface, and the analytics, alerts and alarms to turn the data into insights about the condition of the subsea BOP.

The Cognition package features five main components:

• An array of new sensors capture data from the subsea BOP, including ram position, hydraulic fluid condition, stack accumulator bottle fluid volume, pressure and temperature, solenoid performance, and connector unlatch pressure.
• Sensor Interface Box (SIB) aggregates data from 80-plus sensors to capture subsea stack operation data. Four SIBs each store Cognition package and BOP control system data, providing redundancy.
• Wireless Stingers provide inductive data and power transfer between the lower stack and the lower marine riser package (LMRP). Removing metal-to-metal contacts results in more reliable long-term operation than “traditional” wet-mate connections.
• The package provides four redundant ways to transmit data from the subsea BOP to the surface, increasing data availability in an emergency. The data retrieval paths are: data-over-power via the main umbilicals, acoustic transducers, ROV connections, or via the system’s black box. The subsea black box records and stores three weeks of time-stamped data. In the event of an incident, the black boxes can be recovered by ROV for forensic data analysis.
• Cognition Knowledge Base provides advanced analytics, alerts, alarms and reports that synthesize real-time and historic BOP data into useful information. Using Cameron’s On Track system, Cognition Knowledge Base BOP information and information from other drilling equipment on the rig can be gathered and presented to the driller, as well as operator or Cameron personnel on the rig and onshore.

Cameron President of Drilling and Production Systems Gary Halverson stated, “Monitoring the condition of a subsea BOP to more intelligently perform maintenance and respond to emergencies is of great importance to Cameron’s drilling customers. We intend to lead the industry in the application of monitoring technology to make drilling safer and more efficient.”

The EVO 300 Bonnet addresses drillers’ need to shear stronger, thicker tubulars and seal the wellbore. Building on Cameron’s EVO BOP technology, the new bonnet provides 54% greater ram closing force versus earlier bonnets.

Cognition, Bonnet and On Track are trademarks of Cameron. EVO is a registered trademark of Cameron.