The Magazine for Underwater Professionals
26th November 2018
UK-based Modus Seabed Intervention has entered into a collaboration agreement with Fugro, the Netherlands, to provide hybrid AUV pipeline survey and inspection services within Australasia.
“The collaboration enables Fugro to offer the Modus H-AUV (hybrid AUV), the most capable and advanced subsea AUV available, to perform high-speed survey and inspection whilst maintaining best in class data quality,” said the company.
Modus said the collaboration has been awarded its first contract and the H-AUV spread has been mobilised to Australia with a suite of state-of-the-art survey sensors and ancillary equipment, including the Cathx Ocean, Ireland, laser and photogrammetry system and docking unit allowing deployment and recovery on the seabed to perform pipeline integrity survey work on Australia’s North West Shelf. Utilisation of the H-AUV spread delivers significant efficiency gains in terms of data acquisition speed and quality whilst allowing for a reduction of operational personnel offshore, therefore providing tangible safety benefits and cost savings, according to Modus.
Marcus Hemsted, business development manager at Fugro, said: “As Fugro continues to develop and lead the development of remote offshore operations within the region, we are excited to come together with Modus to offer the H-AUV as part of a suite of cutting-edge survey and inspection technology utilised to actively support our IMR client base in the Australasian region.”
Nigel Ward, commercial director at Modus, added: “The ability of the new hybrid AUV technology to improve efficiency and increase quality coupled with Fugro’s advanced data processing and remote operations expertise has enabled the collaboration to secure this first project within the Australia region. We feel that this project will redefine the way that future pipeline inspections are performed locally.”