Aberdeen-based subsea firm Viper has landed a deal with oil majors BP and Total to develop its insulation monitoring system which could save North Sea projects millions of pounds.
The joint industry project will see the firm, which also operates in Portishead, looking to extend development of its V-Slim monitoring technology, which is used to finding and locating cable and connector faults in remote subsea operations.
The deal, which has been secured through the Industry Technology Facilitator, will look to help link monitoring units together so they can accurately locate faults in hard-to-reach areas – helping cut the costs of repairs and reducing production downtime.
“Our partnership with BP and Total will enable us to advance this key technology in order to produce a novel and innovative suite of subsea electrical integrity management tools,” said Viper Subsea managing director Neil Douglas.
“The data recovered from the subsea network of V-SLIM units will give operators an accurate picture of where faults are occurring in their subsea electrical distribution network.
“A minor fault can allow sea water ingress into an electrical connector or cable and can eventually cause a much wider system failure. The new technology will help field operators locate and rectify these faults before they have a chance to cause more disruption.”
Water getting into conductors and connectors on production systems is one of the main causes of subsea faults, becoming a problem as units get older.
Viper said it hopes to field-trial the new system within the next 18 months.
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