Often located hundreds of miles away from land, offshore oil and gas platforms pose challenges with their unsheltered maritime environment, heavy weather, and risk of explosive, toxic, and corrosive atmospheres - with limited resources.
Sounds like conditions are ripe for robots on rigs.
In 14 years at Equinor, robotics researcher Anders Røyrøy has explored the application of robots in jobs that he describes as “dangerous, dirty, distant, or dull,” where use of a robot can serve to mitigate or eliminate safety risks for humans.
One of the highest priorities for robotic development and deployment, in view of their impact on inspection and maintenance routines, are remote operators for onshore and offshore platforms.
Failures in such harsh environments could jeopardize the lives of human operators, the environment, and process equipment. Semi- or unmanned operations can yield significant reductions in the risk of personnel exposure to dangerous chemicals. And in this age of social distancing, robots can be essential in providing contactless support.
Traditionally, bases of design have been focused on improving the safety of existing manned installations sites (brownfield) - those not designed with robots in mind - during potentially dangerous operations. Although it is possible to enhance safety, efficiency, and production availability on a brownfield site, French supermajor Total E&P is challenging that approach by developing remote or unmanned robotic solutions for specific functions on greenfield sites - that is, on automated, unmanned platforms designed to accommodate newly developed technology.
Generally unattended/unmanned installations are those that are visited only every 2 to 3 months. However, if the duration is pushed to one visit per year to perform annual maintenance tasks, it is possible to reduce the complexity of the platforms by removing equipment meant for human presence on site. There are several safety and cost advantages for operating remote production sites using robotics in place of crews.
For example, without the presence of personnel on site, an operator can often remove human-related systems such as living quarters, catering, evacuation boats, and staff transportation to and from its installation, along with inherent risks and high costs. Fewer boats, helicopters, and less road transportation leads to reduced operating costs and CO2 emissions. On such unmanned sites, Total is considering mobile, multipurpose, and ground robots that are ATEX-compliant (safe to operate in potentially explosive environments) and suitable for harsh and dangerous conditions.
A fully autonomous robot can gain information about the environment, move around and work for an extended period without human intervention, avoid harmful situations (unless those are part of its design specifications), and learn new ways to execute its tasks while adapting to changing surroundings.
