Autonomous Techniques for anthropogenic Structure Ecological Assessment (AT-SEA)

Lead Research Organisation: NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY CENTRE
Department Name: Science and Technology

Abstract

Thousands of Oil & Gas industry structures in the sea are approaching the end of their lives. At this time, they typically need to be removed and the environment returned to a safe state. This process is known as decommissioning. As many of these sites are old (typically 20+ years) and originally were drilled before the current environmental regulations existed, there has often been some contamination of the seabed around these sites. To ensure that no harmful effects will occur, decommissioning operations need to be supported by an environmental assessment and subsequent monitoring. Monitoring may be required over many years after decommissioning, especially if some structures are left in place. Monitoring surveys in the offshore environment are expensive and time-consuming, requiring ships and many specialist seagoing personnel. This requirement, although vital, will have a considerable cost for industry and the public.
Ocean robots, which use computer systems to carry out survey missions by themselves, are regularly used in detailed scientific assessments of the environment. As they collect very high-quality data quickly, such robots have recently been adopted for some tasks by industry but these still require an expensive support ship as they are not capable of long-range missions. Recent technological developments have cut the cost and expanded the range of these robots to thousands of kilometres, making it possible for long-range assessments of multiple sites to be undertaken with a robot launched from the shore. This would have many advantages, improving the quality and quantity of environmental information while cutting the costly requirement for a survey ship and crew. We will carry out the first fully autonomous environmental assessment of multiple decommissioning sites. The Autosub long-range ocean robot submarine ("Boaty McBoatface") will be launched from the shore in Shetland, visit and carry out an environmental assessment at three decommissioning sites in the northern North Sea, before returning around 10 days later with the detailed survey information onboard. The robot will take photographs of the seabed, and these will be automatically stitched together to make a map of the seafloor, structures present, and the animals that live there. Established sensor systems will measure a range of properties of the water, including the presence of oil and gas. As well as the decommissioned sites, the robot will visit a special marine protected area where we know there are natural leaks of gas, to check the robot can reliably detect a leak if it did occur.
On return to shore, the project will examine all the data obtained and compare it to that gathered using standard survey ship methods. We will test if the same environmental trends can be identified from both datasets to determine if the automated approach would be a suitable replacement for standard survey ship operations. The project will also produce a fully documented case study, which includes detailed information on the costs and benefits, practical information on deployments and approaches to reduce the risks and improve the efficiency of operations. This will be used by industry, scientists and government regulators, to demonstrate the techniques and will provide the necessary information to potential users to aid in their adoption. The overall goal of the project is to improve the environmental protection of the North Sea at a reduced cost and to demonstrate how this leading UK robotic technology could be used worldwide.

Planned Impact

Collecting environmental status and monitoring data is critical to gain approval for decommissioning operations, other hydrocarbon industry work and offshore renewable activities. These data are already regularly collected, but work will increase as more industry assets reach the end of their life. As well as the requirement for monitoring in UK waters, companies will have a similar requirement in global operations. Such data are essential to reduce the risk to the environment and are usually a legal requirement. Conventional survey and monitoring rely on equipment lowered from attendant vessels. This results, typically, in physically small, single point samples, and measurements of environmental status. Such survey designs are often sub-optimal, and infrequent sampling in space and time limits the reliability of the resultant analyses, interpretation, and prediction. Such surveys routinely cost millions of pounds. Marine autonomy offers the prospect of substantial efficiency gains over current practice, greater spatial and temporal coverage, higher quality data, and significant cost savings. This will greatly benefit the companies who need these data and may serve as a model for environmental assessment in other applications, beyond decommissioning. In addition, lower costs mean that more frequent monitoring is achievable, reducing the risk of environmental impacts from decommissioning sites going undetected and unmitigated. As an additional impact, vessel operations, which could be greatly reduced by increased use of autonomy, account for significant greenhouse gas emissions and a large proportion of health and safety incidents.
Through the innovative use of autonomous vehicles, the UK government, its regulators, and the relevant authorities, will have access to increased volumes of high quality and directly comparable background data than previously possible. This will allow bodies such as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and their statutory advisor the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), to gain a better understanding of conditions at decommissioning sites and reference sites around the UK. This will enhance the scientific evidence base to support future environmental management strategies at site and regional level. In addition, JNCC will be able to use or access this approach to tackle a parallel challenge, evaluating the environmental status of the UK's large network of marine protected areas (MPAs). As well as demonstrating the approach, this project will contribute directly, with data from the Braemar Pockmarks Special Area of Conservation being provided to JNCC to help evaluate this approach directly.
The project outputs will enhance UK marine capability. Autonomous robotic vehicles are becoming more prominent in marine applications. Developing the Autosub Long Range vehicle and demonstrating its enhanced capability, will provide significant impetus for other companies developing such systems. Increased use of autonomy, with the UK a global centre of excellence, will provide economic benefits for technology and service companies as well as end-users. In addition, it provides a low-cost, high-quality solution for marine survey activities overseas, which could be developed as part of UK government's official development assistance activities.
The large number of offshore installations reaching the end of their life cycle, and the lack of global consensus on how best to tackle the issue of decommissioning, is of great public interest, particularly as it will come at a significant cost to the taxpayer. There is public interest in ensuring that the role of structures, for example as artificial reefs, and impacts of decommissioning are understood to prevent potential ecological impacts during operations. There is also a broad public interest in the marine environment, its status and approaches to monitor it.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description BORA Blue Ocean Research Alliance
Amount £100,000 (GBP)
Organisation Subsea 7 S.A 
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2021 
End 11/2026
 
Description Collaboration with BP 
Organisation BP (British Petroleum)
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution We have carried out meetings and presentations at BP about AT-SEA. These have included operational knowledge exchange, to help plan successful missions, and more informative presentations to a wider group (e.g. the BP Decommissioning Group (24 Jan 2023 BP Sunbury). We have included BP datasets in our planning and analysis of results from AT-SEA surveys.
Collaborator Contribution BP have provided technical expertise to facilitate planning of the AUV mission carried out by the AT-SEA team. BP have provided access to numerous datasets about their assets, NW Hutton, Miller and Don, which will contribute to analyses carried out by the AT-SEA team.
Impact None yet
Start Year 2021
 
Description Collaboration with BP 
Organisation BP (British Petroleum)
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution We have carried out meetings and presentations at BP about AT-SEA. These have included operational knowledge exchange, to help plan successful missions, and more informative presentations to a wider group (e.g. the BP Decommissioning Group (24 Jan 2023 BP Sunbury). We have included BP datasets in our planning and analysis of results from AT-SEA surveys.
Collaborator Contribution BP have provided technical expertise to facilitate planning of the AUV mission carried out by the AT-SEA team. BP have provided access to numerous datasets about their assets, NW Hutton, Miller and Don, which will contribute to analyses carried out by the AT-SEA team.
Impact None yet
Start Year 2021
 
Description "Know and Grow" session with staff at energy company 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact This Know and Grow session for Hurricane Energy discussed environmental variability in the deep ocean west of Shetland, UK, an area impacted by the offshore hydrocarbon industry. It showed how seafloor imaging can be used to generate datasets to study changes in the abundance and diversity of deep-sea organisms and how this can be used to assess seafloor environments e.g. for MPA monitoring or industry baseline assessment. It showed results from recent studies of anthropogenic impacts from sedimentation (e.g. oil drilling) over time-scales ranging from hours to 10 years. The session finished by discussing improved data quality and collection efficiency through novel techniques such as shore-launched AUV photographic survey. The AT-SEA project was presented as an example and there was some discussion of how this could be relevant to Hurricane Energy in future environmental monitoring.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Deep-sea ecosystems 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Contribution to a podcast for the Geographical magazine, discussing deep-sea ecosystems and how we study them
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Habitat mapping in the deep ocean: using the latest technologies to chart the Earth's last frontier 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Invited lecture in the 'Marie Tharp' lecture series of the Geomar institute, Kiel, Germany. The lecture series is specifically aimed to provide a stage for leading female researchers, and includes a panel discussion with female Early Career Researchers afterwards.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description INSITE Marine Monitoring webinar, Online. Title Autonomous Techniques for Seafloor Environmental Assessment. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Presented as part of an online webinar on the role of structures in the North Sea. The AT-SEA component was titled "Autonomous Techniques for Seafloor Environmental Assessment" and reached an audience of around 100 peopl, mostly from industry but also including regulators, policy makers and academics.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Introduction to imagery use in marine science 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Presentation for one of the Ocean Decade online labs. Reached a wide audience of scientists, ECRs, general public
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description JC237 - A user-case example of the hybrid application of marine autonomy 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presentation for the research group 'Marine technology' of the Bremen University, Germany. Resulted in scientific discussions and plans for further collaboration
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description JC237 - A user-case example of the hybrid application of marine autonomy 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Presentation at the annual MATS symposium at NOC
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://noc-events.co.uk/mats-2022
 
Description Media on AT-SEA Project for public outreach 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We filmed and released a video about the autonomous vehicle deployment for AT-SEA, with interviews from the team, footage from the deployment and of the vehicle.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgcE9vgpNuM
 
Description News about successful AUV deployment 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The deployment was heavily publicised with a website, three press releases, active engagement with media and through social media (e.g. Twitter). It attracted considerable media interest. We obtained video footage and images of the deployments and interviews with key staff that were used in outreach. The work was featured on BBC Radio (Radio 4 Today Programme and BBC Shetland), STV, local media (Shetland Times, Shetland News, The Press and Journal) and industry trade publications (Marine Technology, Ocean Technology News, Offshore Engineer, ROV Planet etc).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Presentation and discussion with Oil Spill Response Ltd 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact This was a presentation about the INSITE AT-SEA AUV missions to decommissioned oil platforms in the North Sea. The aim was to present the project and initial findings to help plan future use of autonomy in oil spill response by OSRL. The audience was experts from the technical department at the international oil spill response company Oil Spill Response Ltd (OSRL).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Presentation and panel discussion at SUT/MASTS Workshop - Decommissioning & Wreck Removal 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Attended and presented at the seventh Society for Underwater Technology (SUT) and Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) Decom and Wreck Removal Workshop. This brought together international expertise from oil and gas decommissioning, marine salvage, renewables and marine science, to build a shared understanding and explore solutions within wreck removal and offshore decommissioning. There were between 50 and 100 attendees who engaged with the discussion. There was considerable interest in the autonomous approaches for environmental monitoring proposed.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://masts.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Flier_SUT-MASTS-Decom-Workshop-2021_Final.pdf
 
Description Return to Whittard Canyon: monitoring long-term change in a complex deep-sea environment 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presentation for the research group 'Sedimentology' at the Bremen University, Germany. Resulted in scientific discussions and opportunities for further collaboration
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Return to Whittard Canyon: monitoring long-term change in a complex deep-sea environment 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presentation for the research group 'Marine Geology' at Bremen University, Germany. Resulted in scientific discussions and opportunities for further collaborations
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Talk and Panel Discussion at Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) - Structures in the Marine Environment Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact SIME2021 focused on the impact that the presence or removal of man-made structures may have on biological marine ecosystems. The talk and panel discussion given by the research team reached an audience of around 100 people and stimulated discussion on the role of structures in UK seas (and more generally). This was held on day one (June 17th) of this two-day event. The event brought together academics, stakeholders, industry and government representatives interested in this area of work.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://hopin.com/events/sime-2021
 
Description Talk at Marine Autonomous Technology Showcase, NOC, Southampton, UK 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Did talk on Autonomous Techniques for infraStructure Ecological Assessment (AT-SEA). Marine Autonomous Technology Showcase, NOC, Southampton, UK. Reached an audience of around 150 people, mostly from industry but including policy makers. Resulted in requests for more information about using this approach for industry applications in other decommissioning sites.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Talk at Structures in the Marine Environment Conference, Online 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Gave talk on Autonomous Techniques for Seafloor Environmental Assessment at the Structures in the Marine Environment Conference 28 June 2023. Reached audience of about 80 people. These were mostly industry professionals interested in the role of structures in the marine environment or assessment approaches for this. Received industry interest for developing this work for other locations.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023