Saipem S.p.A (Saipem) and Oil Response Limited (OSRL) have signed an extension of their existing Services Agreement to include the provision of FlatFish, Saipem’s underwater drone for environmental monitoring and inspection of asset integrity.
The existing contract between Saipem and OSRL provides for the storage, maintenance, training of personnel and readiness including the remote emergency response of the Offset Installation Equipment (OIE). The OIE is a unique system designed to intervene in case of subsea well spills in shallow water (up to approximately 600 m water depth), when direct vertical access is not possible.
The expanded Services Agreement encompassed the deployment of FlatFish, the subsea drone developed by Sonsub, Saipem’s centre for underwater technologies and robotics, for a wide range of offshore tasks, including survey, leakage detection, through water column plume and dispersant concentration monitoring, environmental assessment and patrolling.
Furthermore, the Agreement allows Saipem to enlarge the fields of application of FlatFish, making a fundamental step towards its commercialisation on a global scale.
FlatFish is a part of Saipem’s Hydrone robotic development program, consisting of a series of subsea drones which are able to perform fully automatic inspection, surveillance, maintenance and rescue operations efficiently, safely and in an environmentally friendly manner. In particular, FlatFish is able to autonomously perform complex inspections of subsea assets, thanks to the robotic technologies it incorporates: from integrated artificial intelligence to advanced navigation.
