Offshore staff
OSLO, Norway — DeepOcean has entered a long-term charter agreement for a newbuild unmanned surface vessel (USV) for use in subsea inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) and survey support for offshore oil and gas and renewable energy.
The company is chartering the vessel from USV AS, a joint venture established by Solstad Offshore, Østensjø and DeepOcean to invest in and own USVs.
The vessel will be equipped with a work ROV capable of operating in water depths of up to 1,500 m and a tool package to perform subsea operations. It will be capable of conducting most types of subsea inspection, survey work and subsea intervention tasks.
To increase its working weather window, it will include a newly developed launch and recovery system designed to allow work class ROVs to be operated from relatively small vessels.
Despite being remotely controlled from shore, the USV will have various autonomous features to ensure safety and integrity of the spread, and it will be able to perform in severe weather conditions.
During operations, both the USV vessel crew and ROV operators will be co-located at the same remote operating site.
Other features are a hybrid diesel-electric propulsion system and a battery package that allow the unmanned vessel to operate offshore for up to 30 days without the need for charging or refueling.
DeepOcean estimates the USV can cut CO2 emissions by more than 90% compared to a conventional offshore vessel when conducting subsea IMR tasks.
The Astilleros Gondán shipyard in Spain will construct the 24-m long, 7.5-m wide USV, with delivery scheduled by the end of 2024. Following offshore trials, it should be ready to begin its charter with DeepOcean the following year.
08.01.2023
