Diverless splash zone inspection and repair

OceanTech Innovation is a Norwegian company that cleans, inspects, repairs, and modifies offshore structures in the splash zone using remotely operated robotic tools, with no divers, ROVs, or support vessels. The splash zone is the band of a structure within the reach of the waves and tide, where corrosion and fatigue accumulate fastest and where conventional access is hardest, so this is the work that drives offshore platform life extension.

Track record and clients

OceanTech has completed more than 80 projects across 55 installations, recording 250,000 incident-free work hours. It developed an eddy current weld inspection robot with ConocoPhillips for the Ekofisk C jacket and qualified it through a DNV technology qualification process. It has carried out riser protection net and fairlead replacement for Equinor, riser inspection for Hess on the South Arne field, and life extension work for Woodside.

The commercial case

On one ConocoPhillips Skandinavia life extension project, the approach delivered a reported $1.9 million saving against conventional methods. The saving comes from removing the dive spread: fewer persons on board, no support vessel with its day rate and emissions, and less weather standby because the tools capture data in conditions that would stand a dive team down.

Why it is in the Hub

Pulse represents OceanTech in Australia because WA's offshore infrastructure is moving toward the same ageing-asset problem the North Sea reached first, and the inspection and life extension questions are identical. OceanTech has opened an office in Perth, so a WA operator can scope splash zone work without coordinating a campaign across a 10-hour time difference.