|
 inspection system The next call was to Oceaneering International Services, where I talked with Jon Playford, Commercial Manager. Oceaneering now concentrates on ROV operations, tie-backs, drilling support and turnkey operations in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). The western hemisphere operations, effectively GoM and Brazil, are managed out of Morgan City and Houston, while the eastern hemisphere operations, which include the North Sea, Mediterranean, West Africa and Asia Pacific, are managed out of the Aberdeen offices. Oceaneering boasts the largest fleet of ROVs worldwide, and business is brisk. Out of the 45 ROVs based in Aberdeen and Stavanger, only a few are idle. The company's engineering capabilities were recently significantly enhanced when it acquired Aberdeen-based consulting engineers Ian Murray Engineering (IME) in January this year. This doubled the size of the Engineering Division of Oceaneering in Aberdeen. No time was lost following this strategic acquisition, because shortly afterwards Oceaneering launched the Pneuma Scavenger, an environmentally sound subsea drill cuttings recovery system designed and built in conjunction with Italian partner Pneuma Srl. The system can work down to 200msw. The development project had been funded by the EC Thermie/ JOULE Programme and Aberdeen-based oil company support. Oceaneering's leading position in several areas of deep-water operations has been further consolidated recently in a series of record-breaking achievements. In drilling support, it has established a new water depth record of 2850msw offshore Brazil, with the 150hp ROV Hydra Millenium 5 operated from Deepwater Frontier. It had been working offshore New Zealand and West Africa before being mobilised in Brazil. Meanwhile, the diverless repair of two high-pressure 4.5" pipelines at a record depth of 304msw from the newly built MSV Ocean Intervention on the Dulcimer Field, Gulf of Mexico, represents another deep-water first for Oceaneering. The procedure used Oceaneering Smart Flange Plus connectors, 1250 of which are already installed worldwide. The exercise has extended the company's pipeline repair capability to 3045msw. On the back of these pioneering achievements, the latest development to come out of Oceaneering's R&D workshops is the Minimum ROV inspection system. This consists of the small Minimum ROV which is deployed from a self-contained module sharing the same cage as one of Oceaneering's Magnum or Millennium work-class ROVs. The two ROVs can operate simultaneously and independently of each other but share the same main umbilical, winch, tether management control and video topside systems. The integrated system has a capability of 3045msw. Yet another R&D project has been announced by Oceaneering in the USA, with a cooperative agreement with three other companies to develop a diverless deep-water hot-tap for pipelines. The objective is to provide a capability to connect gathering pipelines to transmission lines in depths to 10,000fsw. The Oceaneering website is at www.oceaneering.com |
© 2000 Underwater World Publications Ltd.