Aberdeen centre achieves remote inspection of North Sea platform

Fugro has completed a full inspection of an oil and gas platform in the UK North Sea managed from its remote operations centre (ROC) in Aberdeen.

Originally the company had intended simply to trial the remote inspection capability during the campaign.

But due to COVID-19 restrictions, only one offshore inspection engineer was able to travel to the platform, 250 km (155 miles) offshore Scotland.

Inspection engineers based at the ROC in Aberdeen then undertook to deliver the entire project remotely in order to keep to the schedule.

An ROV was mobilised with dedicated remote systems for visual inspection, cathodic protection and flooded member detection, with all systems base-checked to confirm communications links with the ROC.

In addition, Fugro implemented a COABIS database across the onshore and offshore locations, allowing the client and ROC personnel to access data acquired by the ROV in near real time.

Source: Offshore Magazine