Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - rov

Offshore Ocean Observatories, are composed of suites of surface and subsea instruments and sensors with long-term power supplies and permanent communications links that can feed data to scientific laboratories in real-time. Motivated by advances in computing, telecom, marine architecture and subsea sensor technology, researchers observe the oceans in real-time, for long periods of time, and sky around all the way to deepwater, including imaging and continuous sensor observation along the whole water column to the sea floor. Ocean observatories are designed to answer questions about how the seas and oceans work, their dynamics and peculiarities.

The Brazilian Government has decided that any future bidding rounds involving pre-salt blocks will only be launched according to the local industry capability to supply the demand in equipment and services needed by the sector. Local industry has been struggling to keep up with the demand placed by O&G players already involved in pre-salt E&P in Brazil, which are all Petrobras partners, such as BG and others. A study is being done by the Brazilian government to define which is the adequate exploration rhythm for pre-salt development that will allow local industry to keep up with demand realistically. This is an important initiative by the Brazilian government because it will allow sector of local industry to develop technologies and services required by the deepwater pre-salt players.

Since the Deepwater Horizon tragedy in 2010 the industry has taken long strides in well control and well blowout containment. British Petroleum, having been directly involved in the accident at the Macondo well, was forced to look into a solution that would permanently seal the gushing deepwater well. However, even before they could come up with a permanent solution, BP needed to cap the well over the damaged BOP (Blow-out Preventer). This eventually took BP a few months to accomplish, yet using a large amount of engineering ingenuity a capping stack was manufactured which got the job done. Since at the time there was no off-the-shelf solution to capture the spilling oil straight from the BOP…

The partnership between Schilling Robotics and FMC is having a very positive impact on nearly all of the fifteen projects FMC operates in Brazil.Since 1985, Schilling Robotics has been engineering, manufacturing, and delivering the highest quality subsea equipment in the subsea market. Its first small, hydraulically powered underwater remote manipulator went to market in 1986, and by 1988 Schilling had become a leading supplier of high-performance subsea remote manipulator systems used in offshore oil, telecommunications, scientific, and military operations. By 1997, Schilling had developed a suite of manipulator systems and accessories to fit a variety of needs and budgets.

There is a wide array of equipment used in deepwater oil and gas E&P, many are well known, others less so and some are simply unique. Deepwater subsea ultra-high pressure water (UHP) jets belong to this last category. Chukar Waterjet is the only water jet manufacturer in the world that offers UHP water jets that operate in the ultra-deepwater subsea environment, down to depths of up to 10,000 feet (3000 meters). Chukar’s deepwater subsea water jet system has numerous applications for deepwater emergency response operations, salvage operations, and rapid de-mobilization operations. It can cut steel up to 250 mm thick and quickly blast away concrete weight coatings, corrosion and marine growth at pressures up to 55,000 psi (3800 bar).

Subsea oil fields are dependent on a large amount of connections between various kinds of subsea equipment in order to function. They allow umbilicals, flowlines, risers and rigid jumpers to connect to manifolds, x-mas trees, BOPs, pipelines and riser bases. These connections need to be absolutely safe and reliable as connection problems can cause a series of problems in operating subsea equipment which may affect exploration and production only a little or cause these to partially or completely stop. On top of that subsea connection failures may also cause oil spills or gas leakage in the environment in small or large amounts, driving operators and subsea service and equipment providers to invest heavily in research regarding ideal connection manufacture…

The R/V Meteor research ship arrived in Fortaleza, Ceara, on Brazil’s Equatorial Margin last Friday, June 28th. The Meteor which has a complement of 30 scientists of different nationalities, including one Brazilian, left port on Monday as it begins another Atlantic crossing to Namibia in West Africa, where it is due to arrive on July 29th. Along the voyage the ship will be collecting samples and data from deep waters, to be analyzed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers, composed of chemists, biologists and physicists. The only Brazilian aboard is Marcio Pereira, a 63 year old professor of Oceanographic Physics from the Geophysics department of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), whose studies will be concentrated in variations of marine currents.

ATIVA is a Braziliam company that develops and provides innovative technologies in Subsea Engineering. It is one of the spinoffs of the Genensis Institute run by the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC). The Genesis Institute is an incubator for companies in the social, cultural and technological sectors. ATIVA develops solutions to the constant technological challenges encountered in deepwater O&G operations. The company has been a standout in developing ROV operated tools, designed for deepwater inspection and intervention, with an eye at competing for the many subsea field development contracts on offer in Brazil and abroad.

With a number of new O&G discoveries popping up nearly continuously in Brazil, both in shallow and deepwater, there has been a significant increase in ROV demand by operators, not only the major players but by all players involved on the Brazilian oil boom. In general the delivery of a complete ROV system may take around nine months, this includes the delivery of key equipment such as heavy duty winches, power and control umbilicals, flotation foam blocks, control modules, tooling kits and backup equipment. Here in Brazil, ROV manufacturers, which are basically all foreign companies with local offices, have been increasing their local stocks of ROV systems.

The Brazilian ROV pilot training company RRC Robotica Submarina, has recently acquired two work class ROVs from majorn U.S. ROV manufacturer Schilling Robotics. RRC Robotics also offers specialized services such as; Consulting and Auditing ROV systems; 3D modeling of subsea operations; Subsea engineering; ROV operations and rental, sales and maintenance of ROVs and tools from its base in the City of Macaé, located northeast of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Macaé is also the main hub for all offshore O&G companies and service providers in Brazil. Schilling Robotics was founded in 1985. Schilling is headquartered in California U.S.A. and has regional offices in Texas U.S.A., Aberdeen, Scotland, and Singapore. Schilling Robotics also operates a service and support station in Brazil.

With the sharp increase in ship and shipyard construction, port construction and port safety awareness, all prompted by the mayor pre-salt and post salt oil discoveries off Brazil, many new local service companies, specialized in subsea services have been launched. Some of them are actually developing, Work Class ROV´s in Brazil using foreign or even locally developed technology. There has also been a marked demand increase for smaller ROV´s to be used in various fields including video inspection, side-scan sonar mapping, marine environmental research and training. It is likely that demand for small AUV´s will be increasing steadily as they can be very useful for environmental research…

The Remora is specially designed ultra-deepwater ROV. It was designed and built to explore and undertake specialized work at the seabed up to four miles deep. The builder of the Remora 6000, Phoenix International, is an American marine services company experienced in designing and manufacturing unmanned subsea vehicle and also in conducting complex manned and unmanned underwater operations. Phoenix is also a highly regarded operator, when it comes to wet and dry chamber underwater welding, underwater non-destructive testing, manned diving, side-scan sonar operations, underwater tooling, submarine rescue, and engineering design and integration.

Marseille-based Cybernetix is a major European provider of remotely operated or robotic systems for intervention in subsea systems, operating in 15 countries. The company launched its Brazilian subsidiary in December 2010, located in Rio de Janeiro. CYBERNETIX Produtos e Servicos Ltda. "CYBERNETIX do Brasil" was born to compete for subsea contracts in Brazil, specifically aiming at services for the deepwater subsea pre-salt plays being discovered and also for those plays going through EWTs or already in first phases of production, as some pre-salt plays already are. Structural integrity monitoring for offshore units along with robotics equipments for inspection…

With the great demand for deepwater subsea equipment and services,  for deployment at the new pre-salt plays and other post-salt deepwater plays from Petrobras and other O&G operators in Brazil, various companies specializing in deepwater equipment and services are setting up or have already set up shop in Brazil. At this point there are very few totally national companies that have the capacity to offer deepwater E&P support services and basically there are no 100% national companies with the capacity to manufacture deepwater support equipment. That will undoubtedly change along the next decade but for now until the foreseeable future these equipments and services will be provided by foreign companies through their Brazilian subsidiaries.

The Orteng Group has been investing in turn-key solution for energy systems and automation and is now reaching out to rig module construction and O&G exploration in Brazil. Orteng AC Service, the technology branch of Orteng Engineering, has been introducing AUV´s, ROV´s and Manipulator Arms, through a partnership with ECA Hyatec. During the Rio O&G 2010, the Orteng booth was brimming with subsea tech products such as the AUV Alistar 3000, which is projected to undertake inspection missions using videos and a wide array of sensors up to a depth of 3000 meters. They also had manipulator arms on display and demonstrations of the equipment, including a manipulator arm serving champagne, just to show how precise the equipment is.

AUVs had only been used for a limited number of tasks dictated by the technology available until newer technologies were developed. With the development of more advanced processing capabilities and high yield power supplies, AUVs are now being used in Brazil for some new tasks, although its primary function is still seismic studies and environment analysis.The players in the Brazilian O&G market use AUVs in conjunction with Survey ships to make detailed maps of the seafloor before they start building subsea infrastructure; pipelines and subsea completions can be installed in the most cost effective manner with minimum disruption to the environment.

The market for ROV services is set for continuous growth in Brazil as new deepwater fields are explored and developed. The recent contract Subsea 7´s i-Tech division signed with Petrobras (Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.) to provide ROV´s and intervention tooling services on up to 30 offshore drilling rigs is a good indication of what is to come. This contract alone will basically double the size of i-tech in Brazil, the contract value is estimated at a minimum of $250m with the potential for up to $405m, depending on the number of units that will go to each rig and the number of personnel deployed to maintain and operate the ROV´s. There are also many ongoing ROV support vessel…