Viper Subsea has released the next generation of its V-LOCK hydraulic stab plate.

The new model is designed such that all the coupler float requirements are built into the flying half of the stab plate, with couplers rigidly mounted within the fixed half of the stab plate.

This mitigates assembly risk for the small-bore tubing installation on the Tree and Umbilical Termination Assembly (UTA). The need for long lengths of hydraulic tubing behind the fixed plate couplings in order to maintain coupler compliance is therefore no longer required.

The ‘zero float’ V-LOCK completed qualification early in 2015 and the first commercial deliveries have now been made.

The world’s first subsea CT scanner for pipelines, DISCOVERY, has won the first ever Underwater Technology Foundation (UTF) Subsea Project Award for Tracerco.

This is the fourth industry award Discovery has collected in the last 18 months.

Discovery scans pipelines from the outside to gain an accurate CT image of the condition of the pipe and the nature of its contents, with no need to remove the protective coating and with no interruption to production.

Discovery provides data on flow assurance issues and pipeline integrity, including pipe-in-pipe and bundle systems, with defect resolution down to 1mm.

Offshore