The Houston Advanced Research Center (Texas, USA) is collaborating with the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division (NSWCCD), a 3,000-person US Naval research organization, to take existing Navy-developed technology and apply it to the needs of the offshore and maritime industry. The form of this industry-led initiative will be a consortium, called the Blue Water Technology Program. Program sponsors are comprised of companies in the offshore and maritime industry, many of which are based in the Gulf Coast region.
The first stage of the Program is a technology review of the NSWCCD in order to define technologies and intellectual properties that match needs of the offshore industry. Then, Participants jointly design technology transfer plans, mapping industry needs with NSWCCD technologies and capabilities. Finally, Program sponsors enter into technology transfer agreements around individual technologies. Prototyping and demonstrating utilize the combined staffs and facilities of HARC, NSWCCD, and sponsors.
It is expected that the Program will help to maintain dominance of US offshore service industry by advancing new technologies and will shorten the time to develop offshore oil and gas reserves, benefiting the domestic petroleum industry. The Program will also reduce risk and cost to the industry by taking advantage of mature technologies developed by Navy improving safety performance and environmentally sustainable development.
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