Metocean Support for Oil Field Developments
BMT ARGOSS (BMT), UK, has completed an assessment of metocean conditions to support Energean’s Prinos and Epsilon oil field developments in the Gulf of Kavala. Located in the Prinos-Kavala basin, situated northwest of the island of Thassos and some 18km south of mainland northern Greece, the Prinos oil field is the main structure, with Epsilon being a satellite field. BMT was tasked with providing a comprehensive report on the local metocean conditions including wind, waves and current.
According to Ian Wade, senior Metocean advisor at BMT ARGOSS, the location presented a number of interesting challenges with regard to quantifying the wave climate in particular. In order to provide an accurate representation of the wave conditions at the Kavala study site, BMT ARGOSS had to carry out several levels of analysis utilising their Mediterranean wave hindcast, satellite altimetry, as well as wave buoy statistics from a location between the Mount Athos peninsula and the island of Limnos.
This data allowed to verify the performance of the wave model at that specific location and provide suitable calibrations against satellite altimeter data, without compromising results due to coastal effects. Subsequent wave transforms to the location of interest were then possible, via spectral wave ray tracing approach.
