Robotic Inspection of Mooring Chains in Air and Water (RIMCAW)

Failure of mooring chains that secure floating structures in off-shore production of oil and gas results in oil leaks due to the rupture of flexible pipes that bring product to the surface. The clean-up costs of environmental pollution run into hundreds of millions of pounds. It is therefore important to inspect the mooring chain links to assess the extent of corrosion, fatigue cracking and developing weld faults before they result in failure of a chain. It is very expensive to remove a chain weighing many tons and bring it to shore to inspect it. Savings can be made by performing non-destructive testing (NDT) of a chain in-situ while it is in operation. The heavy chains generate large dynamic forces so that inspection using divers is extremely hazardous. The project aims to develop a small, compact mobile robot that can climb on mooring chains both underwater and in air to scan chain links with advanced ultrasound sensors. The robotic NDT system will provide a tool to assess the condition of mooring chains to enable asset managers to make decisions on repair and remaining lifetime of a chain. It will reduce inspection costs by speeding up coverage of a mooring chain and remove the need for diver inspection which costs £40,000 per floating structure and puts their lives at risk.

PESTLE analysis indicates that oil will remain important for the world economy for the next 20 years with rising demand forecast; increasing offshore oil extraction will promote new oil & gas projects and increase the market size for RIMCAW to meet fast emerging technology requirements for NDT that minimises human intervention; more preventive maintenance and continuous monitoring of moorings will increase the demand for NDT autonomous products; remote automated monitoring will become important making RIMCAW an ideal solution. Wider expected Impacts from a successful uptake of RIMCAW are:
(a) Reduced environmental impact and improved safety of offshore production [5]. Loss of platforms due to chain failure result in rupture of oil risers which is costly (£3M per day from lost production alone). It damages the environment e.g. the Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010 cost BP £90bn, prompted new safety legislation in the US and Europe (2015 US offshore safety drilling rule, 2013 EU Offshore Safety Directive).
(b) Improved profitability of operators: By reducing production losses from mooring failure (estimated £3M in lost production), reducing leaks and downtime, saving the industry £750 million over 4 years [6] and enabling monitoring service providers to deliver new services for more cost-effective asset management saving the industry £270M over 5 years. (c) Generate new business: Target users are asset operators doing own inspections, sub-sea engineering contractors and specialised inspection companies. Targeting UK companies with a global reach will create new jobs in the UK. In-situ NDT on mooring chains is a new market driven by very recent standards and directives. For the service provider, this will repay the investment in RIMCAW equipment within 1 year and generate revenues of £74M, creating 470 new jobs.
(d) Impact on Health and safety: The EU Safety of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations directive requires improvement of safety and reliability of moorings and risers in off-shore installations and makes companies fully liable for environmental damage. Operators are under increasing pressure to use cost-effective automated monitoring of the structural integrity of mooring chains. The EU Major Accident Reporting System database (MARS) records approximately 96 incidents relating to major accident potential and loss of containment 1980-2006, equates to an overall loss of 11 lives, 183 injuries and a loss of over £170Million. The risk of accidental deaths resulting from failure in mooring chains is far too high [7]
Remote automated NDT of mooring chains with RIMCAW will eliminate loss of lives and injuries to divers.
5] http://www.moorinspect.eu/partners.jsp,[6] http://www.innotecuk.com/-Majic,Hunter
[7] http://www.shipsandoil.com/features/ , [8] http://www.bu.edu/sustainability/ deepwater-horizon-oil-spill/ [9] Petroleumstilsynet report - www.ptil.no