Offshore Europe has made its much-anticipated return to the Granite City with exhibitors bringing their A-game to attract attention.
Online Cables Ltd (OCL) has brought along Herbie from the Disney 1968 classic, The Love Bug, to attract the attention of the delegates on the show floor.
Billy Rylance, Business Development Manager for OCL, told Energy Voice: “Herbie is the Online Valve side director’s and it’s his pride and joy. He’s now brought it across and put it into our colours and that’s why it’s here and it will be coming to a few more exhibitions this year.”
He said that the firm managed to drive the classic Volkswagen Beetle into positions “a few days before the show started.”
The Online Group is focussing on two sectors, “electrical cables and valve side for oil and gas”, says Mr Rylance, explaining that the firm is a “distributor and stocker”.
By bringing Herbie to the show floor at Offshore Europe OCL looks to land more work across “oil and gas, renewables, offshore, onshore, battery storage, solar, anything.” Mr Rylance said.
From retro to future tech
Moving from the charmingly retro to technology that was once thought to be the work of science fiction, SMD is showcasing a new way to operate ROVs.
The firm is showing off its new “Horizon System” which will enable its clients to pilot Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) from “anywhere in the world”, changing how the industry approaches the technology,
Development engineer for Innovation at SMD, Andrew Ambrose-Thurman, said: “The idea is, traditionally if you want to connect to pilot a vehicle, you have to be offshore.
“You have the vehicle subsea with a tether umbilical going up to the vessel. You have people sitting on the vessel, often running 24/7, so you would have several shifts of people. You need a lot of people out there and it’s expensive, it’s not very nice for them and it’s a health and safety issue.
“Plus, any data that you’ve got is on the vessel, so you either have people out there to analyse it or wait for them to come back in so you can look at the data you’ve collected.”
SMD’s solution is its cloud-connected Horizon System, which allows people onshore to pilot an ROV that is out at sea, enabling clients to collect data without having to keep a team on a vessel on the water.
To demonstrate this technology, which is set to be tested in October at the offshore test centre in Blythe, SMD has one of its “modular” pilot chairs and control systems set up on the show floor at Offshore Europe.
Delegates can get hands-on with the technology and pilot a virtual ROV from Hall 1 at Aberdeen’s P&J Live.
More excitement from Offshore Europe
Offshore Europe 2023 has something for everyone with golf simulators, virtual racing setups, race cars and so much more.
Here are some pictures Energy Voice got from the exhibition halls on the first day of the four-day-long conference: