UK: ABPmer updates weather downtime calculator

ABPmer has been providing metocean information to the offshore sector for nearly a decade.  In recent times this has included weather downtime statistics to inform operational planning, tender pricing and programme management. 

The company’s weather downtime calculator was originally developed as an in-house tool but in 2015 ABPmer launched the express service that provided offshore contractors with direct access to the tool and its global hindcast database.  Downtime calculations take less than 10 minutes, which dramatically speeds up contractor decision-making.

Since that time, the calculator has increasingly become the go to tool for weather downtime calculations. The upgrades to the express service include:

• allowing for specifying tasks that are ‘interruptible’ during the working schedule
• providing additional information about partial completion of the whole operation, including Gantt charts showing the progress of the operations including weather downtime per task
• enabling the use of externally supplied data to be used in the tool for calculations (although our in-house SEASTATES dataset remains available for use as a default)
• adding more detail to the specification of input parameters, i.e. more detail about the wind speed or wave period.

Bill Cooper, ABPmer Managing Director, said: “We are pleased to have been able to respond to industry requests and adapt the service to suit the differing needs of those operating in the offshore environment.

“Our online express service has proved to be extremely popular over the last year, giving offshore developers and operators the means to generate statistical information themselves whenever they want was evidently something lacking in the market.”

Learn more about ABPmer’s metocean services on Stand 138, RUK Global Offshore Wind event taking place at Manchester’s Central Convention Complex from the 21-22 June 2016.