Produced water treatment, oil and gas separation and aquatic toxicology specialist, Opus, has formed a strategic partnership with major engineering simulation technology and solutions provider CD-adapco.

In a move to further enhance both companies’ specialised services through combining their unique, individual strengths, Opus will now utilise CD-adapco’s computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, Star-CCM+, on client projects, as well as its own research and development work.

And with a collaboration agreement in place, a key element of the partnership will see Opus and CD-adapco carry out joint projects, and also exchange and transfer knowledge and technology.

The CFD software, which Opus will utilise for a range of engineering tasks, is used for visualising fluids behaviour within oil from water separation and produced water treatment systems. Opus chose the CD Adapco software for its flexibility and robustness, with the aim of pushing the technology to it limits.

Guiding the design of separation and treatment devices, the technology provides a constant stream of engineering data from the earliest stage of the design process, providing designers with the opportunity to explore the full range of operating scenarios and design configurations, before committing to the construction of often expensive prototypes.

Opus and CD-adapco have already commenced working on mutual collaboration projects relating to the correlation and validation between physical and computational modelling, particularly in the field of analysing the effect of rocking motions, experienced, for example, onboard floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels – on fluid separation processes.

Nigel Weir, managing director of Opus, commented on the forming of the strategic partnership, “We are pleased to partner with CD-adapco, a world renowned player in engineering simulation technology and solutions.

With both companies sharing similar, complementary strategies, we fit extremely well together and I’ve no doubt the partnership will assist us both in further enhancing the services we offer clients. For example, we are now in a position to apply the CFD software more extensively and with CD-Adapco possessing more computing power and run time availability, we will now be able to work more efficiently on larger scale projects. We look forward to a mutual, highly beneficial relationship, which will see both companies further cement their positions as industry leaders in their individual fields.”

Opus provides the offshore oil and gas market with a range of engineering and environmental services, including fluids characterisation and performance monitoring of offshore facilities, validation testing of process equipment and marine ecotoxicity testing of production chemicals.