Solving decommissioning problems
Published: 02 June, 2017
Saab Seaeye customer, Stinger Technology, reports it has found a way to penetrate the labyrinth inside offshore production tanks in search of environmental contaminates prior to decommissioning. The company says it managed to squeeze a unique underwater robotic systems configuration loaded with sampling technology through a 150 cm square hatch to search the tank’s internal maze of baffles, and navigate along 25.5 cm diameter pipe-runs of curves and bends.
Stinger’s idea turned the already compact Saab Seaeye Falcon into a ‘mother ship’ from which is launched an even smaller fly-out VideoRay and tiny fly-out Stinger Nano. The Norwegian company dubbed the trio, Mother, Daughter and Little Sister.
With the market expecting 1800 wells to be decommissioned over the next 10 years, in Norway and the UK alone, the new ‘little family’ is set to be busy. Importantly for offshore operators, is that sampling investigations on installations still in production, but planned for decommissioning, are not interrupted.
Saab Seaeye says it was pleased to collaborate with Stinger who are known for finding new ways to work in confined underwater spaces and chose the Falcon as the smallest and most powerful option on the market.
