As the subsea industry’s landscape continues to change apace, new horizons are surfacing for the ROV sector.

The market is experiencing an increase in activity from the sharp rise in demand for subsea installations and intervention. This, combined with the industry’s ongoing journey into increasingly challenging and remote environments, opens up a plethora of exciting new opportunities.

However, it also exposes the ROV sector to an almost unprecedented challenge—its ability to keep up with the sheer scale of demand and, crucially, provide a quality service that delivers high industry value.

While the shift toward creating subsea factories (SFs) is an exciting prospect for enhancing recovery from mature and marginal fields, the standardization of complete subsea processing is likely to further increase the growing demand for ROVs.

This is because the introduction of SFs will create more subsea structures that will subsequently require installation, inspection, maintenance and repair. They could also impact the AUV sector in that it may experience an increase in demand for survey work pre-installation.

But just as expertise and know-how is central to underpinning the success of SFs, exactly the same applies to ensuring the future sustainability of the ROV sector. To put this into perspective, NASA wouldn’t send someone to the moon without ensuring that person was a trained and experienced astronaut and fully competent of flying a shuttle that is highly equipped for the mission.

However, like the energy industry as a whole, a critical shortage of ROV skills is looming due to the aging workforce and the quickly growing demand for ROV services.

The International Marine Contractors Association estimated a shortfall of about 2,000 ROV personnel from 2012 to 2017, while analyst reports have said that ROV expenditure is expected to more than double by the end of this period, with rig use anticipated to be the primary driver behind the increased need for ROV services.

These are believed to be very conservative estimates, serving as another stark warning that urgent action is required to attract the next generation of ROV pilots and personnel. Yet the ability of the ROV sector to keep up with demand is limited by the number of companies bringing fresh talent into the sector and, in particular, those training new offshore recruits.

New initiatives

Companies like ROVOP have recognized the need to invest in ROV pilots and technicians of the future by introducing their own training initiatives. Established at ROVOP’s headquarters in Westhill, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and incorporating a $400,000 simulator, ROVOP’s ROV Academy is developing the skills of offshore personnel at all levels through a comprehensive and structured training program that includes all ROV-related study, practical experience and associated training.

The closure of Royal Air Force bases in northeast Scotland also has produced an influx of potential trainees with suitable pretraining experience and aptitude. The ROVOP Academy brings individuals like these, after they have completed their training at a recognized ROV training school, to ensure they are equipped with the best knowledge and highest standard of experience required to progress their careers within the company as well as to manage the competence and training of ROVOP staff at all levels.

Highly competent staff operating the best possible equipment are vital to providing an unrivaled delivery of service that significantly benefits operations, adding genuine value and creating tangible results. Often, savings measured in millions of dollars are achieved due to the considerable increase in efficiencies, especially when the day rate of a host vessel is taken into account.

ROVOP was founded on three basic yet fundamental principles—to provide the most skilled operators in the industry, best-in-class equipment, and an unparalleled quality and delivery of service.

Through these values, ROVOP has established a track record and has grown its team to more than 130 people within three years. This is a positive indication of the huge appetite that exists to fill the skills gap in the market.

As the subsea industry becomes increasingly pivotal to ensuring global security of energy supplies—accelerating the demand on the ROV sector—and with major subsea projects operating a cost base that can easily run to $500,000 or $1 million a day, careful selection of an ROV provider will help reduce risk and increase the efficiency of a project, saving considerable time and cost.

Technology investment

But just as people power should remain at the forefront of the agenda for consolidating the ROV sector’s position for future sustainability, ongoing investment in advanced technology is fundamental, particularly with the subsea industry venturing farther into ultradeep water and harsher environments while exisiting subsea infrastructure requires ongoing maintenance.

Technical advances in ROVs such as the ability to configure them according to project requirements, including specific tooling and sensor needs, have left the older models behind and, if not obsolete, certainly struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of change. No matter how well it has been maintained, a veteran system cannot compete in terms of the advanced diagnostics, system reliability, performance, repairability, automated functions and deployment of advanced survey equipment and subsea tooling.

Up-to-date ROV controls are ergonomically designed, and the systems have an array of automatic pilot functions built in. These can include auto heading, auto pitch, auto roll, auto depth, auto altitude, station keep (or dynamic positioning) through the entire water column, auto displacement and auto track, which can be invaluable in pipeline or cable survey tasks.

Using the latest control system technology, the sector can even use automatic manipulator functions to reduce human error in ROV operations, which ROVOP plans to introduce to its fleet later this year once full tank trials are complete.

While there are still gaps in technology, these are being addressed by manufacturers focused on improving reliability, operability and maintainability of the equipment. Furthermore, improvements in heave compensation technologies used in launch and recovery are helping to avoid downtime by preventing equipment damage in heavy weather. In some instances, they are also increasing the operating envelope.

Increased efficiency

Operators need to control costs while improving safety and environmental performance to make many subsea oil and gas fields viable, particularly mature basins. With this in mind, and with the ever-increasing demands on the ROV market, it has never been more vital that the subsea sector focuses on efficiency and works together with the operators to make sure the industry continues to prosper.

Collaboration and knowledge sharing is essential to both addressing and overcoming the challenges ahead and, ultimately, to breeding the next generation of talent and technology.

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