Last month’s column took a look at deepwater spending, delivering the good news that operating companies are investing today in technologies that will help them to gain access to tomorrow’s frontier areas. With investment expected to reach US $32 billion this year, and to stay at that level through 2013, there is obviously a lot going on.

The interesting thing about this high level of investment is that it is coming from a lot of places. Although much of the money will being spent by operating companies, there are many other companies that will contribute to the total. R&D dollars are targeting a broad range of technologies.

One area of research is autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and more particularly, a subset of AUVs called autonomous survey vehicles (ASVs). Subsea 7, for example, is working on an ASV called the Geosub.

The original Geosub ASV hit the market in December of 2003 after undergoing a range of sea trials to prepare it for surveying and positioning in harsh deepwater operating conditions. At the time of the product launch, Subsea 7 announced that the new ASV, though it represented a sizable step forward in AUV technology, was not the end of the road. More money would go into R&D efforts that would expand the unit’s capabilities.

To date, collaborative efforts have resulted in the industry’s first pipeline inspection by an AUV that actively follows the pipeline instead of following a pre-programmed route. The unit has also carried out autonomous riser inspection and docking using SONAR and video. The present-day Geosub, according to Subsea 7, is also different from other AUVs in that it has no depth limitations.

The company has identified and quantified the technology gap that exists in the industry and has developed a plan that will extend the Geosub’s capabilities to include
3-D inspections of subsea installations, riser and pipeline inspection, and light intervention. Subsea 7 is predicting that in two to three years, technology will be available to achieve these objectives.

Research dollars are also going toward deepwater well intervention technology. Aker Oilfield Services is directing its efforts to taking light well intervention from 1,300 to 10,000 ft (396 to 3,050 m).

At the Deep Offshore Technology Conference in New Orleans in early February, Cecilie Drange discussed some of the advances the company is making toward this goal with the construction of what she called “the largest vessel designed for intervention.” The vessel size is important, Drange said, because it allows for greater stability, operations in a wider weather window, and a larger range of services.

The first vessel, which is due out at the end of this year, will be able to run coiled tubing, perform wireline services and testing, and carry out construction, offering the advantage of being onsite from the beginning of field development through decommissioning.

“This isn’t something we’re planning,” Drange said. “It’s something we’re doing.”

While Aker expands vessel capability, Vryhof Anchors BV is developing a tool that can measure anchor performance in real time. The load is measured at the vessel to give horizontal displacement of the anchor on the seabed as well as the anchor’s trajectory. The equipment is made up of inexpensive disposable parts that are left on the anchor.

This technology provides a number of pluses. It physically confirms the anchor has reached the targeted installation load, records precise anchor location data, and provides installation and operational information that can be used to create greater functionality in new anchor designs.

Testing is under way in the North Sea on the prototype while research continues to push the limits to allow longer battery life (to extend beyond installation), wireless data transfer from the anchor to surface, and load measurement on anchors for mobile offshore drilling units during drilling operations.

The number of new concepts and technologies being funded today is enormous and covers an impressively broad spectrum that ranges from the technologies broadly covered here to new installation and construction methods, drilling technologies, intelligent completions, subsea processing, and floating production systems that aim to take production into deeper water and the arctic.

The money that is going into R&D today will redefine the operating parameters of industry and will change the industry’s perspective on what is possible to achieve in the future.