Sea State Explorer - Metocean Data for Subsea Operations

Anyone who has worked in Bass Strait knows that offshore operations on the East and West coasts are very different. The challenge was getting the data to quantify those differences and understand what they really mean for subsea operations. After many discussions, we spent several months sourcing global metocean data and building a tool that allowed us to compare historical conditions and turn assumptions into measurable insights.

Consider a 2.5m working wave height in summer:

• West Bass Strait is above 2.5m around 77% of the time

• East Bass Strait is above 2.5m around 18% of the time
  

That means a job with a 2.5m operating limit could be workable more than 80% of the time in the East, but less than a quarter of the time in the West. Such a difference really matters when you’re planning subsea lifts and impacts vessel selection, mobilisations and project schedules. Our Sea State Explorer tool makes the data accessible

We’ve just made our tool freely available. It provides statistics on wave height, period and direction, wind, weather windows, extremes, cyclones, currents, tides, water depth and nearby oil and gas assets.

Simply click on a location at sea and select your operational wave height to view relevant metocean and subsea data for that area. The dataset is primarily derived from more than 40 years of observations and modelling from the EU's Copernicus programme, and has been structured specifically to support subsea operations planning.

While the tool does not provide live forecasting, it offers a practical way to analyse historical conditions and statistics, helping engineers, project teams and operators make more informed planning decisions. It can also generate PDF reports to support lift plans, engineering studies and project documentation, addressing a challenge many of us have faced when trying to source reliable historical metocean data.

We welcome your feedback and encourage you to bookmark and use the tool.