UK's Sonardyne Completes Deployment of Six Subsea Monitoring Systems at North Sea Carbon Storage Site

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Project materials released on November 10 show that the UK's Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) has completed the deployment of six subsea monitoring systems at the Endurance CO2 storage site in the North Sea, and the UK subsea technology company Sonardyne has commenced environmental baseline and passive seismic monitoring. The equipment includes three autonomous environmental monitoring landers and three TIAMAT passive seismic monitoring systems supplied by Germany's K.U.M. The site is located in the southern North Sea, approximately 150 kilometers off the Teesside coast, with the CO2 reservoir situated about 1,000 meters below the seabed.

The deployment of this monitoring equipment is part of NEP's long-term measurement, monitoring and verification program. The three environmental monitoring landers were designed and manufactured by Sonardyne and primarily collect data on seawater chemical composition, ocean currents and seabed environmental conditions; the other three TIAMAT systems were supplied by Germany's K.U.M. and are used to record passive seismic activity around the storage site. The two types of equipment operate in coordination to establish baseline data on environmental conditions and geological activity prior to future CO2 injection.

Sonardyne's environmental monitoring landers are designed for long-term subsea residency, equipped with autonomous power management systems, edge data processing capabilities and underwater acoustic wireless communication equipment. Monitoring data can be transmitted from the subsea equipment to the surface, eliminating the need for frequent recovery of the entire lander as required by conventional methods. This design enables continuous acquisition of environmental data across different time periods and reduces the dependence of long-term subsea monitoring on vessel recovery operations.

Environmental monitoring parameters include CO2 concentration, pH, nitrate, salinity and dissolved oxygen in seawater, while also recording ocean currents and seabed conditions. The passive seismic monitoring systems are responsible for identifying microseismic activity around the site, providing data for subsequent analysis of the natural seismic background near the reservoir and the potential geological response during CO2 injection. Environmental monitoring and seismic monitoring data will be jointly incorporated into NEP's long-term monitoring system.

NEP selected Sonardyne through a competitive tender in June 2025, commissioning it to provide subsea environmental monitoring equipment and related services for the Endurance site. The original contract arrangement included conducting environmental baseline monitoring for approximately two years prior to the commencement of CO2 transport and storage. The deployment progress announced on November 10, 2026 shows that the relevant equipment has entered the actual subsea monitoring phase.

On the same day, NEP also awarded Sonardyne an additional passive seismic monitoring service contract, under which Sonardyne will be responsible for adapting, deploying and operating the ocean-bottom seismometers manufactured by K.U.M. The related services will collect seismic baseline data prior to the start of storage operations and may subsequently continue through the CO2 injection phase to monitor long-term geological activity around the reservoir.

Endurance is one of the core offshore storage facilities of the UK's East Coast Cluster carbon capture and storage program. NEP was jointly established by BP, Norway's Equinor and France's TotalEnergies, and is responsible for building the infrastructure to transport and store CO2 from the Teesside and Humber industrial areas to the North Sea. The first phase of the project plans to store up to 100 million tonnes of CO2 over a 25-year operational period, with storage operations expected to begin in 2028.