We congratulate the Northern Lights Project and Blue Logic as winners of the ONS 2020 Innovation Awards. The Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Tina Bru presented the awards to the winners at ONS 2020 Goes Digital Tuesday 1 September.

The goal of the Northern Lights project is to create an open-access transport and storage infrastructure for CO2. By creating a value chain with flexibility to receive CO2 from anywhere in Europe, the project is unique in offering a solution to industries with an ambitious target for CO2 reduction from their business.

Blue Logic’s solution will support the industry in moving more processes to the seabed, in reducing its emissions, increasing safety and improving the efficiency of our operations offshore. Blue Logics technology’s innovation is an open-standard subsea docking station (SDS) (“A subsea USB”), permanently installed on the seabed, that will enable any type of subsea vehicle to dock, recharge, download data and upload new mission plans, de-coupling the underwater drone from the manned surface vessel for the first time.

The decision of the ONS 2020 Innovation Award is:

The Northern Lights project is a truly joint effort in the spirit of the ONS 2020 theme Together. The project is a bold and visionary effort to combine continued value creation from existing industries, while contributing to solve the grand challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions at large scale. Even though the benefits of the project are still to early to harvest, the partners have passed important milestones this year and created a momentum and enthusiasm that the industry needs.

The realization of Northern Lights can be a catalyst for innovation and green growth both in Europe and beyond.  We, the Jury, find Equinor, Shell and Total’s Northern Lights project, a worthy winner of this year’s ONS Innovation Award.

The decision of the ONS 2020 SME Innovation Award is:

Blue Logic’s technology is innovative and future-oriented and can be an enabler for more underwater operations in both traditional offshore energy industries, but also for future ocean industries. It will enable improved reliability and regularity in subsea systems, save costs and lower emissions of greenhouse gases and improve safety and working conditions for personnel. Standardizing the docking stations will also spur innovation and competition in the AUV market and allow new suppliers to enter with new vehicles. It is well aligned with our industry’s digital aspirations. We, the Jury, find Blue Logic’s universal subsea docking station, a worthy winner of this year’s ONS SME Innovation Award.

The Innovation Award Jury consists of:

  • Tarjei Nødtvedt, Special Advisor – The Research Council of Norway (Chair)
  • Camilla Leon, Subsea Alliance Manager – Aker BP
  • Rebecca Allison, Solution Centre Manager – The Oil & Gas Technoogy Centre (OGTC)
  • Gordon Ballard, Executive Director – The International Association of Oil & Gas Producers
  • Hege Kverneland, Retired – National Oilwell Varco
  • Kalmar Ildstad, Director of Exploration, production and area development – The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD)
  • Anngjern Pleym, Head of Department – Siemens Oil & Gas offshore AS
  • Ellen Braune, Head of Drilling & HSEQ – Horisont Energi