Surveyor Interceptor ROV First Commercial Work for Gassco

MMT and Reach Subsea have just completed their first commercial project with Surveyor Interceptor ROV for Gassco AS at the Knarr gas pipeline in the North Sea. The pipeline inspection was conducted from the vessel Edda Fonn. This first work was to verify that the rock berm on the pipeline was still intact prior to putting a commissioning pig train and gas in the pipeline in near future.

Ola Oskarsson, MMT´s founder and project manager for SROV, explains that after successful offshore tests on Europipe 2 last year the company did some fine tuning on cameras. The new Launch and Recovery System which was reconstructed after measurements during the sea trials performed well in sea state up to 3.8HS. The Knarr gas pipeline, running from approx. 400m water depth up to 140m over a stretch of 106km, was surveyed in one go with speeds up to 4.5 knots. The Surveyor Interceptor SROV swam 4-5m above pipe collecting multibeam with 0.1m gridsize and full 3d photomosaic. The velocity and quality of data was according to MMT outstanding and the system really proved itself. The field report was delivered 18 hours after the 17-hour survey. The final draft report was delivered 8 days after leaving the vessel. The weather had been dreadful during February and it was necessary to work fast in the given weather window since the pipe was ready to put into use.

Record Speed

On 1 March, Gassco became the operator for the Knarr gas pipeline. This first survey with the SROV reached a world record in speed with its 4.5 knots, according to Mr Oskarsson. The SROV has potential to survey in a speed up to 6 knots (beating a normal ROV inspection speed by a factor of 3 knots) and all parties wanted to hold back with this new equipment to ensure a successful survey. However, Gassco hopes that long-term potential cost savings of more than 30% from normal ROV inspections can be possible as a result of using this new type of equipment and technology and smaller support vessels. This is something that should interest most operators and licence holders in view of the current economic climate in the oil & gas industry, said David Rodrigues de Miranda, asset manager at Gassco AS.

Image : Exposed pipe at gravel dump. Image courtesy: MMT.