SCOTTISH company Aubin has successfully completed offshore sea trials for its Gel Lift System (GLS).
It offers potentially game-changing lifting/transportation/installation technology, and is being developed for maritime renewable and even oil and gas industry application.
The use of low density fluids and bags for lifting is not new. Many decades ago, both oil and diesel were successfully used as a means of achieving controlled lifts during marine salvage.
The system under development by Aubin, with input from Ecosse Energy, uses a low-density gel that is non-hazardous and environmentally responsible, to provide incompressible buoyancy for subsea.
It’s about packaging an approach that is already well proven, only this is not necessarily realised by the maritime renewable or oil and gas sectors.
Paddy Collins, Aubin’s managing director, believes that GLS could be used to install all types of offshore structures including wind, wave and tidal, and that it avoids issues associated with maritime heavy lift cranes, including waiting one’s turn and relying on the weather.
A bag and gel system is reckoned to be far cheaper than a crane, simple to use and, if there is project slippage, less expensive.
GLS was tested off the coast of Orkney in early June.
During the trial, a lift bag was attached to a 1,050kg clump weight and used to place it in a controlled fashion on the sea bed.
By pumping low-density gel into the bag the weight can be supported in the water. Pumping small quantities of gel into or out of the bag enabled the weight to be raised, lowered or even made neutrally buoyant so it would float underwater and be easily adjusted at the touch of a couple of fingers.
According to Mr Collins, the testing went well; the lift was assisted and monitored by divers from Leask Marine, who reported the rate of decent and ascent was exceptionally well controlled.
GLS could be used for lifts from 20kg to 2,000 tonnes, to a water depth of 150m.
For now at least, the main target is the maritime renewable market, even though the Aubin team is heritage oil and gas.
Mr Collins said a number of well-know names had taken an interest in GLS, and that he had held discussions with marine integrity surveyors.
Although patent-protected, he added further filings at the Patent Office were being made with regard to installing turbines offshore.
Aubin received SMART funding to develop the GLS technology from the Scottish government scheme. It provides financial assistance to SMEs to support projects which represent a technological advance.
The firm is also being assisted by the Carbon Trust’s Entrepreneurs Fast Track.
Aubin was established in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, in 1987, and has a team of 20. It researches, develops, manufactures and supplies high quality chemical technology for energy industry applications.