Optical oilfield: the Fosar Deep project

Optical fibres have become the foundation for our digital world. They are reliable, widely available and can carry huge amounts of data over long distances. They are now a defining technology in modern society and, without them, our daily communications could slow down to what many would feel is an unbearable pace. Below water, however, it has been a different story.

In many applications, fibre optics remain at the periphery of the offshore oil and gas industry; surprising, perhaps, in a sector that claims to be on the leading edge of technology. The problem is that, to prove commercially viable, these systems need to be able to operate at depths of up to 3,000m. Testing is just too expensive and the technical barriers are huge.

According to Martin Bett, chief executive of fibre-optic firm Stingray Geophysical, this is about to change. Currently, only 30 per cent of total hydrocarbons are extracted from the average field. At a time when we could be facing an energy shortage, governments are increasing pressure on oil companies to extract more from existing reservoirs. But, while motivation to increase efficiency is growing, firms are limited by their knowledge of reservoir behaviour.