Can a record-breaking undersea drone cut maintenance costs?

An underwater drone has established a new world record for continuous subsea operation.

The Hydrone-R drone from Saipem worked underwater for 167 consecutive days across Equinor’s Njord oil and gas field in the Norwegian sea.

During that time, it carried out missions autonomously, and was controlled remotely from a land-based headquarters, as the needs of the field required.

The record is a strong marker in favor of more and more continuously stationed drones, which it’s hoped could change the way subsea inspections are conducted around the world.

Currently, both transport, equipment, and human personnel have to be shuttled around fields like Njord by helicopter.

That’s monstrously expensive for companies – they have to maintain their own vehicles and personnel, and either invest in the helicopters to move them around, or hire in pilots for the duration of any inspection.

That expense tends to limit inspections to an as-required basis – as in, required by law or regulation – rather than a potential as-needed basis, governed by regular monitoring of equipment and systems.

It’s also of course ruinous in terms of its ecological impact – with helicopters flying all around fields across the world on a regular basis that might, just possibly, not need to do so.

Those are some of the reasons behind widespread interest in permanently on-station subsea drones.

The drones are rechargeable, (meaning they’re powered electrically, and can take power from renewable resources), they’re on-site around the clock, meaning they can alert human crews to anything that genuinely poses a threat to the operation of equipment, or, for instance, potential leakage.

And the combination of autonomous operation and remote control means they can be left alone to perform routine inspection, and be sent to areas of special human interest to investigate particular issues, sending high-quality data back to equip a human mission if one is required.

The Hydrone-R’s new performance record strongly suggests that on-station subsea drones are a viable way forward when it comes to inspection and maintenance in oil and gas fields the world over.