LOWER COST OFFSHORE FIELD DEVELOPMENT UTILIZING AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES
F. Richard Frisbie, Kjell J. Vie and Donald W. Welch
ABSTRACT
The offshore oil and gas industry has the requirement to inspect offshore oil and gas pipelines for scour, corrosion and damage as well as inspect and intervene on satellite production facilities. This task is currently performed with Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) operated from dynamically positioned (DP) offshore supply or diving support boats. Currently, these tasks are expensive due to the high day rates for DP ships and the slow, umbilical impeded, 1 knot inspection rates of the tethered ROVs, Emerging Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (AUV) technologies offer opportunities to perform these same inspection tasks for 50-75% lower cost, with comparable or improved quality. The new generation LAPV(Linked Autonomous Power Vehicles) will operate from fixed facilities such as TLPs or FPFs and cover an operating field 10kms in diameter.
