Subsea intervention systems
For almost ten years, the Oil&Gas division, Development & Product department, has been developing several innovative subsea intervention concepts that are now considered as references by the Oil & Gas industry.
Especially, SWIMMER, an hybrid AUV/ROV intervention system provide an efficient way to insure light but virtually permanent Inspection, Maintenance, and Reparation (IMR) operations over deepwater or remote hydrocarbons production facilities (wellheads, manifolds, separation units, flowlines, etc…). This concept leads to the reduction of operational costs (OPEX) by decreasing operations’ reliance on dedicated dynamically positioned (DP) ROV support vessels. It indeed provides the oil operator with a tool, parked on a docking station at the sea-bottom, which allows active inspection and monitoring of subsea production facilities. The involvement of Cybernétix into new offshore oil field developments begins at the FEED (Front End Engineering Phase) level, where the oil operator’s field architect and Cybernétix collaborate to make the required provisions to embed the SWIMMER system into the subsea production facilities.
Cybernetix currently works with several oil operators about the deployment of SWIMMER pilot sites. Today, on-going projects are linked to offshore developments where TOTAL and STATOIL are partners.
On the other hand, Cybernetix has also set up an operational AUV-based concept, called ALIVE, enabling light interventions on standard wellhead ROV panels. The ALIVE vehicle is equipped with docking and 7F manipulation arms to complete valve override and hot stab connections. It can also be used for the deployment and recovery of acoustic or seismic beacons at sea-bottom.
