Oil and gas platform ocean current profile data

Abstract

Approximately forty deep water oil production platforms and drilling rigs continue to provide real-time current profile data to NOAA's National Data Buoy Center (NDBC). NDBC receives and quality controls the data and transmits it over the Global Telecommunications System. NDBC stores the raw binary current profile data where it can be extracted by private concerns in order to forecast the Loop Current and Loop eddies for oil and transportation concerns in the Gulf of Mexico. After quality control, NDBC also stores the processed data. In addition to aiding the oil and gas industry to understand and design for the forces in the water column generated by strong currents in the Gulf of Mexico, the three years of ocean profile data show a number of oceanographic phenomena. The high currents of the Loop Current that extend to several hundred meters are present and generally impact several oil platforms as it moves into the northern Gulf of Mexico. Cyclonic loop eddies exhibit many of the same characteristics of the Loop Current, but move into the western Gulf of Mexico as currents diminish. Five day plots of the current profiles show the passage of eddies. Evidence of tidal currents modifying unidirectional currents are also present. Inertial currents generated by wind events are omnipresent and propagate throughout the water column in all regions of the Gulf. The current profiles from delayed-mode, bottom-mounted profilers show that inertial currents reach great depths. Statistical analyses of these data verify the existence of the currents.