Press Release: ECE Offshore and Stema Systems Intensify Their Collaboration

Two ambitious and innovative companies have this November sealed their corporation, ECE Offshore, a company specialized in consultancy with respect to the offshore construction in oil, gas and renewable industries, and Stema Systems focusing on hydrographical, geophysical and surveying equipment, have formalized their collaboration in the shape of a strategic corporation agreement. Reinier Nagtegaal of ECE Offshore and Pepijn Peter of Stema Systems signed the official corporation agreement last month.

The corporation started already in the summer of 2014

The corporation between ECE Offshore and Stema Systems started around one and half year ago. The reason for the initial collaboration was a demand stemming from the market for a need to have real time monitoring of the installation of the HCAC/HVDC cables, flexibles & umbilicals at sea. This want was fed by the necessity of diminishing the risk associated with installation and thereby reducing the damage potential. This risk mitigation would in turn guarantee the increase of life and durability of the cables. ECE Offshore’s clients have long been looking for an alternative for the monitoring of the cable deployment on and in the sea bed. Stema Systems originally a sub-bottom specialist with expertise in hydrographical and geological analysis had already developed a cable detection system, an application making both parties ideally suited for development of the cable laying monitoring, coming at the issue from the software side and hardware side respectively. A lot of research both software and hardware lead to the birth of the OASYS (Offshore Acoustic System) “Thanks to the ECE Offshore launched product line and the hydrographical and geophysical solutions of Stema Systems it became very obvious that the idea had to be grown into a more professional iteration for her clients. OASYS thereby becomes an important instrument for sub-sea construction work where project developers can, during their operations, monitor all the relevant parameters of the total operation (from the departure from the vessel to the post-burial) in UTM coordinates which can be handed over to the commissioning party and their insurers” says Pepijn Peter, director of Stema Systems.

Integration of the dynamic data processing in the right equipment

The hardware side of the OASYS Cable system includes an ECE Offshore developed hydraulic pan and tilt rotator system, combined with the Stema Systems delivered acoustic sonar system with motion sensor. The ECE Offshore developed data processing & object detection software analyses the data originating from the multi-beam and translates this into a real time location of objects within the sweep reach (500m) of the sensor. OASYS Cable monitoring makes it not only possible for the user to monitor continuously the geometry of the cable, but also provides the possibility to verify the actual cable position and compare this to the planned route. In addition to this it is also possible to identify obstacles and thereby enable evasive actions if needed. The Stema Systems developed sub-bottom profiling system offers the possibility to locate the cables that have become submerged underneath the sea bed and to report its exact location.

Track-record

The OASYS Cable monitoring system has been used by several projects including some by project developers such as VBMS. Not only European project developers have shown a marked interest, during a joint trade mission to Asia both ECE Offshore and Stema Systems have seen a significant demand for the deliverables possible.

Reinier Nagtegaal, ECE Offshore director, explains “OASYS puts project developers in a position to work more effective and provide guarantees that can better reassure the final client and make the data readily available. This is vital, because not only is the right position of the laid cable of import, but also the registration of the physical parameters during the installation are needed to guarantee a fully functional product, thereby allaying any claims of damage during installation. Later in the process the position of the cable must be verified to ensure that it has not moved and that no scour has occurred by the forces that the cables are subjected to, which can cause structural fatigue. Meanwhile I see more and more clients busy with the acquisition and implementation of this product and its functionality”.

Where the people behind Stema Systems are primarily busy with the sub-bottom (geophysics) and hydrographical solutions and ECE Offshore is a company principally involved with the engineering & consulting in the offshore oil, gas and renewable industries. Hence combining the clear vision and focus on the innovative, creative solutions provided by both companies puts this collaboration in a prime position to better serve their respective client base and further develop the market potential of the OASYS system.

And now? Further developments and strength in numbers.

The signing of the corporation agreement is not only the formalization of this existing working relationship, but also for both parties the start of further developments in various and useful applications of the technology employed, such as but not limited to: OASYS Rock dumping and the OASYS Dredging monitoring systems. The two companies will also be looking to see how they can collectively strengthen their position in the market. Together time and risk can be reduced to a minimum level when working in the offshore field, thus ensuring our customers success.

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