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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - VERNE (Guided (Ultra)sonic Waves for High Performance Deepwater Pipeline Inspection)

Teaser

Summary

The majority of oil and gas production in Europe takes place on offshore platforms. There are approximately 330 offshore platforms in operation in Northern Europe and there are a number of new platforms planned to be built in the next decade, in particular in the Norwegian Sector of the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. However, the majority of the platforms already operating has reached their design life of 25 years and serious concerns have been raised regarding their integrity as a result of corrosion in particular.

Consequently, the need for decommissioning and/or substituting these assets becomes increasingly pressing. However, associated costs are enormous and it will cost nearly â‚¬20 billion over the next 10 years to remove around 80 platforms and their associated infrastructure. As asset owners strive to prolong asset lifetime and minimise risk of catastrophic accidents, the greatest challenge is the inspection and maintenance of subsea structures like jacket foundations and pipelines. In underwater environments the high pressure, seawater and marine life (biofouling) obstruct maintenance operations and accelerate structure degradation.

This project aims to develop and commercialise VERNE, a non-destructive testing (NDT) system that has the potential to revolutionise underwater inspection of tubular structures by achieving far greater inspection speed and precision compared to existing systems.

Subsea inspections are currently performed using Remotely Operated Vehicles carrying a payload of cameras, sensors and other equipment. VERNE will dramatically improve on their performance by combining ultrasound and acoustic testing that enable (i) the rapid scanning and defect mapping in a 100m radius around the inspection point and (ii) detailed and precise characterisation once defects are identified. VERNEâ€™s technologies enable inspection of both external and internal surface of structures (e.g. pipelines) without the need to remove anti-corrosion coatings and/or biofouling. As such, VERNE will lead to significant cost savings for asset owners while providing a key competitive advantage to subsea service providers.

Work performed

The VERNE project is based upon three successful previous projects; RiserTest, SubCTest and SubCTestDEMO. Furthermore, pioneering technology partners like TWI Ltd and Eddyfi also started to contribute and have been participating in the project actively.

In the course of this project, product development was divided into three phases. The first phase was dedicated to evaluation of design and production. As a result of initial consultations with end-users and technology partners, the capabilities of guided wave ultrasonics was decided to be complimented with conventional ultrasonics technique. Therefore, the deployment mechanism was optimised and marinised such that both guided wave and conventional ultrasonics probes could be accommodated. The design of the bracket was optimised such that large ROVs will not be required for deployment. This will consequently reduce the inspection costs in the future as large vessels with full crew will not be required. The second phase was related to the design and manufacturing of the first prototype of the system which was successfully accomplished. The third phase of development requires rigorous testing of the marinised system which is on-going.

Our product will be able to provide fast and accurate inspection for underwater tubular structures. The technologies integrated and finalised during this project will consist of (i) marinised transducers and probes together with processing capabilities (ii) data transmission to surface and (iii) advanced remote operation methods, therefore presenting the target customers with a system for more efficient management of their underwater assets.

Our vision is to grow our business by â‚¬32 million in gross sales with a return on investment of about 13:1 in 5 years post project commercialisation. With business growth, we will create new jobs. It is our strong belief that the SMEi is the ideal financial instrument for us to accelerate commercialisation of VERNE.

The Verne Consortium is committed to delivering an economically viable, affordable, easy to deploy, guided wave and conventional ultrasonics based inspection system for underwater asset management in harsh offshore environments.

Final results

The VERNE consortium aims at delivering a guided wave ultrasonics based inspection system capable of transmitting condition of underwater tubular structures online with its defect recognition/categorisation software to the operators. This will make it possible to inspect underwater tubular structures without decommissioning them and the downtime will be considerably reduced whereas the useful life of the asset will be significantly increased.

The main impact shall be the prevention of catastrophic failures and hydrocarbon leakage to the environment and thus contamination. And amongst the various direct financial benefits, extended operational life and improved cash-flows can be counted. VERNE will be instrumental in addressing the urgent need for extending offshore asset lifetime and postponing their costly decommissioning while eliminating the risk of catastrophic failures through rapid, automated, accurate, and cost-effective NDT.

Therefore, the motto of Verne project is â€œaffordable, guided wave based inspection and risk mitigation system for underwater tubular structures to prevent environmental hazardsâ€. The merger of a cutting edge inspection technology with a customised high-tech deployment mechanism makes the VERNE system unique and accessible. With the VERNE system, it is aimed at inspecting areas that are not accessible.