Subsea 7 successfully completes AIV trial

Subsea 7’s Autonomous Inspection Vehicle (AIV) has successfully completed its first test mission in the UK North Sea for Royal Dutch Shell plc. (Shell). A series of field trials were undertaken from Subsea 7 vessel the Normand Subsea for the company’s proprietary AIV technology in July.

Graham Sharland, Subsea 7 Vice President of Life of Field, said: “We are delighted with the achievements made on this first trial at an offshore facility. We are grateful to Shell for their support and commitment in helping Subsea 7 and our development partner, SeeByte, bring this technology to the oil and gas sector. Maintaining subsea asset integrity is of prime importance to our clients and the AIV is one example of where Subsea 7 can bring new technology to meet this objective.”

Peter Griffiths, Subsea Engineering Team Lead at Shell, said: “The AIV is an exciting new technology and we are very pleased to support Subsea 7 in these final stages of its development. We look forward to the completion of the Shell new technology integration process and anticipate further collaboration to aim for eventual AIV deployment to enhance Shell’s UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) asset integrity surveillance”.