UTEC Survey Completes Infield AUV Inspection

UTEC Survey Australia has completed a major infield inspection of approximately 550 kms of pipelines and 20 infield structures off the North West coastline of Australia using two of its Gavia Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV). The work was completed on behalf of Apache Energy.

Offshore activity commenced in mid-June and saw UTEC provide two of its latest model Gavia AUV systems equipped with a full suite of survey sensors. Survey works were carried out from the vessel Yardie Creek, with the scope of work completed in less than four weeks.

For the first time, UTEC operated two AUVs on a ‘back-to-back’ basis – when one system returned from a mission, the next one was ready to go immediately. In some cases, the operational up-time in a given day was improved by as much as 40% through the ‘back-to-back’ use of the AUVs. 

UTEC Australia general manager, Simon Hird, commented that UTEC’s AUV Centre of Excellence in Houston is constantly striving to deliver new and improved capabilities, some of which were applied on the Apache project. The quality of data gathered and presented from an AUV survey is astonishing in terms of visible detail.