TGS, a global provider of energy data and intelligence, announced today a strategic cooperation agreement with SAND Geophysics and Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) to provide early-phase ground condition and geohazard evaluations for offshore wind farm development.

In collaboration, the companies aim to support wind farm front-end engineering design (FEED) studies and survey evaluation and design (SED) through the development of multi-client desktop studies across the global wind market. The partnership will develop joint products with the principal objective of creating an offering that reduces development cycle times at a cost-effective price point.

Through their combined geoscience expertise, the companies will conduct detailed desktop studies utilizing relevant subsurface data to identify existing and upcoming site evaluation opportunities in both mature and frontier markets. The focus will be on optimizing the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of ground model development for foundation and data survey designs.

The cooperation agreement follows a comprehensive desktop study that the NGI-TGS-SAND partnership has jointly provided as a multi-client product to consortia, that are currently preparing to bid for offshore wind development rights in Norway. 

Ivar Slengesol, VP of New Energy Solutions at TGS, commented, 
"TGS continues to build on its mission to provide data and insights across the entire offshore wind project development process. With combined expertise in geophysics, geology, geotechnical engineering, and environmental geotechnics in combination with long offshore wind experience, this partnership brings unrivaled capabilities to early-phase ground condition evaluations and risk assessments.”

Mark Vardy, Director and Head of R&D at SAND, commented,
“SAND is excited about this new partnership and the potential to streamline early phase site evaluation. There is a tremendous opportunity to leverage information from extant data and share knowledge/understanding between sites, which can only benefit future offshore infrastructure developments and our global shift towards green energy.”

Thomas Langford, Director for Offshore Energy at NGI, emphasizes the need for streamlined project execution, utilizing a multidisciplinary data-driven approach to meet the growing demands of offshore wind projects. He added, 
“Fulfilling this need starts with desktop studies and survey planning covered by this agreement and follows the interpretation and application of data into detailed engineering design. This collaboration is an important step in this direction for NGI as part of our strategy to support the acceleration of the energy transition through enabling technologies together with the industry.”

KeyFactsEnergy Industry Directory: TGS