Project Overview

The need for this project arises from the fact that the older offshore installations were designed to earlier technical standards and their conditions have significantly deteriorated during service. Historically much of the inspection and non destructive testing (NDT) has been on the top-side, pressure and structural components and comparatively little sub-sea NDT inspection has taken place on the vital support jacket structure, many of which have now exceeded their design life.

There is little if any routine NDT carried out on critical sub-sea welds in offshore support structures because current NDT equipment and techniques do not currently lend themselves to be applied subsea below depths of about 25 - 30metres and those cases are exceptional and rely on divers applying visual inspection and electromagnetic techniques for surface weld examination. The operating oil companies, under the encouragement of the regulatory authorities, are committed to reducing diver operations because of safety issues, shortage of divers and cost. Diver operations are both depth and time limited and there is now a clear case for ROV applied NDT techniques to be used in order to help prolong and extend the operational life of European oil and gas field reserves.

Subctest will deliver several inspection techniques for the inspection of complex welded nodes to be deployed by ROV.

For more information please visit www.subctest.com