Marine Magnetics Corp from Markham, Ontario has successfully tested an AUV-towed Magnetometer. According to Doug Hrvoic president and owner of Marine Magnetics Corp, a company specialized in researching, developing and manufacturing marine magnetometers, OceanServer’s Iver2 AUV model was chosen for its design.

“The Iver2 was designed to enable the integration of various sensors by a third party, and without direct involvement of the Iver developers,” says Bob Anderson, president of OceanServer Technology. “From a hardware standpoint, one approach has been to tow a sensor in the water column behind the AUV, and to connect a tow cable/electrical interface cable to a rugged, waterproof connector on the back of the Iver antenna mast.” That connector provides power and a serial communications port to the vehicle CPU he says.

Working in partnership with Massachusetts-based AUV manufacturer OceanServer Technology Inc., allowed an innovative approach to seabed surveys. The idea was to tow a small efficient magnetometer closely behind an AUV—the thinking was it should reduce the need for weather-dependent traditional boat-towed magnetometer arrays. Marine Magnetics’s Explorer magnetometer had been designed for towing behind a boat, so some adjustments first had to be made such as modifying the housing. “We customized the magnetometer to make it neutrally buoyant and other things that you don’t do for a normal marine survey,” he says. “Normally it’s designed to be heavy so it sinks. Also we added some balancing weights so we could adjust trim to make it an easy load behind the AUV.”

With the hydrodynamics and connectivity challenges taken care of, the crucial question of electromagnetic interference came next: the towing distance was just five meters aft of the AUV. So the next step would be to collect data under real conditions. “I had a really good data set that we could use to truth and check the quality of the data from behind the AUV,” says Hrvoic. “And also the magnitude of the error that the AUV might be creating, if any.” Hrvoic’s data set was from the bed of Lake Ontario, which was an ideal testing ground because of its extensive non-magnetic sediment cover, making for magnetic gradients on a smooth geological background. Man-made objects show very clearly against it. Thus any error in the magnetometer data should show up precisely. Iver2-collected Explorer magnetometer dataset, showing two large steel water intake pipes over a smooth regional gradient background. The survey track is shown as a solid black line. The uniformity of the regional gradient illustrates the high accuracy of the data, showing no signs of heading shifts or motion induced error. Several small magnetic targets are clearly visible and can be correlated with the simultaneously collected side scan sonar data.

This partnership between Marine Magnetics and Ocean Server promises to be an interesting option for shallow water seabed mapping, especially when correlated with side-scan sonar data. I would be interesting to test this concept in deep water, using a deepwater AUV towing a deepwater capable magnetometer. I can immediately think of some good places to use this for shallow and deep water in Brazil, but this is an obviously useful concept for many shallow water locations anywhere in the world. The concept was first tested in Lake Ontario during a reasonably severe storm that included 2 meter waves, so it's definitely usefull and lakes and certainly for rivers and rivermouths too.

Sources: Marine Magnetics Corp., OceanServer Technology Inc., and Earth Explorer Iver2-collected Explorer magnetometer dataset, showing two large steel water intake pipes over a smooth regional gradient background. The survey track is shown as a solid black line. The uniformity of the regional gradient illustrates the high accuracy of the data, showing no signs of heading shifts or motion induced error. Several small magnetic targets are clearly visible and can be correlated with the simultaneously collected side scan sonar data. For example, the anomaly at around 641475E 4839125N is visible in the side scan record as a small partially buried anchor.

Explorer Magnetometer and Software

Use of AUV-towed magnetometers could reduce costs and time to complete seabed surveys, with improved accuracies. Pictured here is the Iver2 AUV with the Explorer Magnetometer rigged to be towed.

Researchers from Coppe/UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) will use data from AUVs,UUVs, floating sensors and satellites in a novel monitoring system, which scientists believe will decrease the time needed in order to identify oil spills. Other than the important aspect of quickly identifying oil spills in the pre-salt, scientists will gain greater knowledge about this little explored region, which is already considered to be the new frontier in the Brazilian O&G industry.

The project is named “Projeto Azul” or Blue Project and calls for a US$10 million investment, which will be footed by BG Brasil. The Project was launched and the investment agreement signed last week during the RIO + 20 event.

The Seaglider UUVs(unmanned underwatrer vehicle) will be launched yet this year and the monitoring parameters range from the surface down to 2,000 meters. The agreement for the project runs for at least three years, but due to the strategic importance of this in depth monitoring, it is expected that eventually it will be changed into a continuous monitoring system to span the next decades. The UUV, which some say looks like a fish, send real-time data of surface temperature, temperature along the water column, salinity along the water column, oxygen dissolved in the water, chlorophyll, organic matter and current direction. 4 Seagliders will be launched by the researchers pre-determined routes already imputed into their memory banks. The AUV will continuously send data during 6 months when it will then be pulled up for maintenance.

Other than the Seaglider, 3 surface buoys will be placed in the sea each month, adding up to 108 derivatives in the 3 years slated for the project. There will also be 36 bottom profilers used, 1 each month, capable of being placed at up to 2,000 meters deep. Researchers will also have access to data from 2 different satellites, one in a polar orbit and another in a geostationary orbit. The satellites will be capable of sending data for surface temperature, sea elevation, color of the water, among other data. Some of this data will be compiled to try to understand aspects related to climate change, impacts of El Nino and La Nina. Another important aspect that the data may help clarify is related to the resurgence of frigid deep water currents from the Mid-Atlantic, which comes to the surface of the northeaster coast of Rio de Janeiro, between Saquarema and Cabo Frio and of which very little is currently know.

Claudio Paschoa

The “Restinga de Jurubatiba” National Park has a coastal area 44 km long and is composed of shrub like trees, rich fauna and flora, 18 pristine coastal lagoons that occasionally open up to the sea. However up to now, its 15 hectares did not encompass the sea fronting it. That is precisely where the most endangered group of dolphins in Brazil are found in greater abundance.

The Pontoporia blainvillei, commonly known as “Toninha” in these parts, is set to be awarded its first dedicated preservation area in the State of Rio de Janeiro. The idea is to include an area with a depth of up to 30 meters (following the depth curve), along the 44 km coastal area that comprises the National Park. This will add up to a 15 km increase in the protected area.

The shy “Toninhas” like these shallow, dark waters that are usually brown instead of blue/green, due to the many rivers and lagoons that meet the ocean in this part of northeast Rio de Janeiro.

According to the State Environmental Secretary and ex-Brazilian Environmental Minister Carlos Minc, the increase in the National Park’s area in order to include a portion of the sea that bounds it, was directly motivated by a major media campaign spearheaded by Brazil’s leading newspaper “O Globo”.

The State Government has agreed to pitch in with funds and other funds for equipment will be handed out by the “Fundo da Mata Atlantica”, which is a fund mainly used for preservation of the forest areas along the coast of Southeast Brazil.

There are still some hurdles to overcome in order to officially implement this increase in the “Restinga de Jurubatiba” National Park. But according to the National Environmental Minister Izabella Teixeira, the Brazilian government has a major interest in protecting and preserving the “Toninhas”. During a Rio +20 event last week.  The Environmental Ministry will study technical aspects to determine the ideal areas to be included in the National Park.

The “Restinga de Jurubatiba” was not randomly considered as an ideal area to preserve the “Toninhas”. The minimum population considered safe for this dolphin is 5,500 individuals, however, recently published studies estimate there are only around 2,000 “Toninhas” left along the coasts of the states of Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo to the Northeast. The greatest abundance of these small dolphins is located exactly in the sea along the coast that makes up the sea boundary of the “Restinga de Jurubatiba” National Park. This may be partly due to the fact that less fishing is done along this stretch of coast and to the important fact that the coastal waters along this part of the coast are rich in food and comparatively remote to other areas of the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

Hopefully this will lead to a more permanent study of the “Toninhas” in Rio de Janeiro and in other parts of Brazil such as Santa Catarina in the south and Espirito Santo. They influx of funds may make it possible to have a dedicated motorboat researching the small dolphins and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to use state-of-the-art technology such as a small low cost AUV or a Seaglider to constantly monitor the ‘Toninhas” underwater, thus bringing a much more accurate view of their present situation and their needs.

Claudio Paschoa

With companies such as Kongsberg and ECA bringing state of the art AUV models into the Brazilian market, and with the great demand for AUV services from the O&G industry, government agencies and universities, the future of AUVs in Brazil looks really promising.

Presently, most AUVs are being employed by the O&G industry for pipeline routing and monitoring, seabed mapping and other specialized services. However there is a growing demand from academia to employ AUVs is oceanographic research and environmental research, this is an important development because it will allow universities to have unprecedented leverage to undertake complex research programs from shallow water to the deepest ocean basins off Brazil and off all the eastern South American coastline, all the way to the mid Atlantic ridge and beyond to the coast of Africa.

Another possible future use for the AUVs will be to map the thousands of still undiscovered shipwrecks off the Brazilian coast. These are known to exist, but the use of AUVs to detect these shipwrecks can greatly reduce exploration costs. Back in the days of Spanish and Portuguese explorers, sailboats from Europe intending to sail to Asia needed to cross the Atlantic and coast down the Brazilian coastline to about the longitude of Rio de Janeiro in order to find the favorable winds that would take them down to the Cape of Good Hope in order to gain the Indian ocean. Still today modern sailboats taking to Asia from the Atlantic follow this same procedure for the same reasons.

With this in mind, it is not difficult to imagine the shear volume of ships coming down this coast and it is impossible to know how many sank after hitting offshore reefs and islands or that were simply broken up and sank due to wind and wave action.  But important shipwreck local explorers unequivocally state that the number of unknown shipwrecks is in the thousand and many may have important historical value, not to mention treasures.

Monitoring oil spills and waste disposals in the ocean is another important job that can be done by AUVs and this is something that govenment agencies and universities in Brazil should look more at, as there is very little being done, particularly in regards to waste disposal in the ocean. With Brazil having such a huge coastline and with most coastal cities continuosly growing this is bound to become a major problem in the near future.

The truth is that the future of AUVs in Brazil is very bright, not only is there a tendency for AUV construction and operation costs to decline in the future, but it is expected that enterprising Brazilian companies will begin to build AUVs locally. This may take a decade to actually happen, yet it most assuredly will as more and more Brazilian engineers work for established AUV manufacturers, in time it is expected that some of these engineers will take the knowledge they’ve acquired and open their own AUV manufacturing companies using private and governmental funds.

This is actually already happening but is a very small scale. The tendency however is for this to have a significant growth in the coming decade as there will be no lack of funds for serious enterprises to tap at.

Claudio Paschoa

The fisheries industry in Rio de Janeiro particularly and in Brazil in general, has historically received few investments from the government or the private sector. In reality, even fisheries monitoring, regulations and inspections are lax, at best. Many species have become basically extinct, such as the large lobster.

This many soon begin to change. Recently the environmental secretary for Rio de Janeiro, Carlos Minc, announced that investments in fisheries and aquaculture will be included as part of the demands for local environmental licensing. This will be mostly directed to industrial environmental licensing in the north part of Rio but will eventually be an integral demand in all environmental licensing procedures along the coast of Rio.

Today the major environmental licensing processes have to do with the new ports being built, new refineries for O&G products, O&G exploration and production infrastructure, thermo-electric plants, steel mills and new shipyards, as these are the main industries located along the coast.

For many years fishermen have been complaining about the effects of many of these industries on the quantity and quality of fish, and also on the increase of pollutants in the ocean. At the same time environmentalists have been hollering about the environmental impact of these industries on coastal environments, coastal communities and in the ocean. Little has been done about these problems and most unfortunately the most visible result is an increase in corruption, where licenses are approved through schemes involving high ranking environmental inspectors receiving personal advantages, to put it lightly.

Mr. Minc has gone a long way in deterring such despicable practices, but we would have to be completely naive to believe that the corruption problem has been totally extinguished. It is however important to have someone totally committed to the environment and widely respected as is Carlos Minc leading the state environmental agency as there is so much money involved and such an aggressive lobbying by the industries, that a lesser person could easily cave in to greed.

It is of major importance to include investments in fisheries and aquaculture in the environmental licensing process as this will be a guarantee that funds will be immediately available for projects in these areas and not just have funds promised that are stuck for ages in the mounting Brazilian state bureaucracies. These investments will also be needed for modern research on fishery related matters, where AUV´s and subsea sonar arrays could be used to monitor fishery activities and the fish and crustaceans, in order to have a updated view of the true state of the fishery industry and of the environment it affects.

The technology is here, the funds will be available and there are a number of state universities that could be involved, instead of simply making it another task for the already undermanned state environmental licensing agency (INEA) or even IBAMA, which is a federal environmental agency and is also undermanned.

With the amount of new industries popping up along the coast of Rio de Janeiro, this new demand on fisheries and aquaculture investments by local and foreign players is definitely necessary, the question is, will it be enough to change the current situation of neglect faced by fishermen and the ocean environment that sustains them?

Claudio Paschoa

Marseille-based Cybernetix is a major European provider of remotely operated or robotic systems for intervention in subsea systems, operating in 15 countries. The company launched its Brazilian subsidiary in December 2010, located in Rio de Janeiro. CYBERNETIX Produtos e Servicos Ltda. "CYBERNETIX do Brasil" was born to compete for subsea contracts in Brazil, specifically aiming at services for the deepwater subsea pre-salt plays being discovered and also for those plays going through EWTs or already in first phases of production, as some pre-salt plays already are.

Structural integrity monitoring for offshore units along with robotics equipments for inspection, maintenance and repair of offshore and subsea installations are some of the capabilities of CYBERNETIX do Brasil, along with plans to integrate imported equipment with equipment manufactured in Brazil or even complete manufacturing of equipment locally, abiding to local content requirements. Technology transfer is also in the cards, as Cybernetix intends to partner local technology research centers in Brazil in order to adapt solutions and develop specific technologies for different and complex subsea environments such as the pre-salt reservoirs and other deepwater discoveries.

Cybernetix offers subsea services encompassing O&G industry demands ranging from feasibility studies to deepwater AUV operations, in the field such as deep water and surface liaisons, underwater structures and structure monitoring services, pipeline and flow line inspection. It is yet another European subsea service specialist investing in a long term involvement in the Brazilian deepwater O&G market. The company has 145 employees worldwide and has developed a world-class engineering and services expertise in project management, and integration of global solutions, operating in 15 countries. It can be expected that with the new local office and growing industry demands, there will be a need for local employee training in order to augment the mainly expat offshore operations teams.

The company is also developing a hybrid AUV/ROV aiming at providing full IMR services (Inspection Maintenance and Repair) on the basis of the very innovative solution, Swimmer AUV/ROV designed to provide deepwater inspection and intervention services, which may be a product concept that could bring important logistical solutions to deepwater O&G operations and potentially becoming economically advantageous to deepwater service providers and operators alike.

The Swimmer AUV transports a specially adapted Work class ROV to the deepwater location and connects itself to a special subsea power hub that is energized from a surface vessel such as an FPSO, even a large multipurpose vessel can be its support vessel as the electronic connection to the subsea power hub is done through a power and control umbilical. Once hooked up the ROV can be deployed to do its own work controlled from the surface vessel, between ROV interventions, the host AUV can do its inspections and sensory monitoring of offshore structures, such as flowlines, riser and pipelines. An operational Swimmer system will make it possible for onsight field development engineers to easily plan future ROV operations interventions and avoid the costs of a permanently stationed support vessel and heavy deepwater ROV umbilicals. The Swimmer is a resident subsea system capable of staying up to 3 months submerged, even in deep waters.

It is also important to note that not only subsea service providers but also more and more foreign subsea equipment manufacturers also appear to be negotiating partnership with Brazilian companies or even opening their own subsidiary company in Brazil, as the supply logistics from vital subsea equipment is one of the main concerns regarding equipment supply for the pre-salt.

Claudio Paschoa

With the great demand for deepwater subsea equipment and services,  for deployment at the new pre-salt plays and other post-salt deepwater plays from Petrobras and other O&G operators in Brazil, various companies specializing in deepwater equipment and services are setting up or have already set up shop in Brazil.

At this point there are very few totally national companies that have the capacity to offer deepwater E&P support services and basically there are no 100% national companies with the capacity to manufacture deepwater support equipment. That will undoubtedly change along the next decade but for now until the foreseeable future these equipments and services will be provided by foreign companies through their Brazilian subsidiaries. Because of Brazilian local content laws, foreign companies wanting to enter the O&G equipment and services sector are basically forced to open a local subsidiary and hire local manpower in order to participate in Petrobras tenders.

Some deepwater equipment and services companies have been here for a long time, such as FMC, Aker and Subsea 7, to name but a few, many more are recent arrivals, such as ECA Hyatec, which through its Brazilian subsidiary ECA Latin America Ltda. offers a range of AUVs, ROVs and many other equipments to O&G operators and Navies in Brazil and all of Latin America. And recently new arrival is Advanced Subsea do Brasil, an originally French company like ECA, Advanced Subsea do Brasil (ASB) has opened its own local subsidiary and has been actively involved it deepwater survey and construction support in Brazil. ASB is present in the pre-salt through acoustic rig positioning services, metrology, intervention method validation and AUV-ROV trials in open ocean and deep water.

In a partnership between ASB and ECA in deepwater pre-salt areas in the Santos Basin, they are supplying deepwater services based on the Alistar 3000 AUV from ECA. The AUVs are being used either in autonomous mode or in remote mode using a 3km fiber optic umbilical. The scope of  the AUV applications are construction support for field installation with pre-lay survey, touch-down point monitoring and as-laid/ as-built survey at the development stage and IMR activities such as  pipeline inspection, FPSO riser & mooring inspection at the exploitation stage. Advanced Subsea & ECA just launched a Joint Innovation Project based on Alistar 3000 for sharing AUV experience between major Brazilian market operators.

Advanced Subsea do Brasil currently has various very innovative projects dedicated to Brasilian market, such as: CS-AUV: IMR & Survey Construction Support services based on ALISTAR 3000, Unmanned ultra shallow water survey service development  and Pre-salt ROM (regional Ocean Model) JIP for the development of a very high resolution (1/36 of a degree) ocean current numerical model centered on Pre-salt area, allowing 7 days forecast at 50 levels.

The Pre-salt ROM is very important as a way of forecasting the complex deepwater currents that occur along the pre-salt as these currents can be very strong and in some cases hard to predict, endangering the very expensive equipment used to drill and eventually produce the pre-salt oil and also important in case of any spills that may occur at the deepwater seafloor level in order to predict the direction the currents will carry any spilt oil.

Claudio Paschoa

Click here for a look at the company presentation -ADVANCED SUBSEA 2010-4.pdf (3,99 mb)

The Orteng Group has been investing in turn-key solution for energy systems and automation and is now reaching out to rig module construction and O&G exploration in Brazil.

Orteng AC Service, the technology branch of Orteng Engineering, has been introducing AUV´s, ROV´s and Manipulator Arms, through a partnership with ECA Hyatec. During the Rio O&G 2010, the Orteng booth was brimming with subsea tech products such as the AUV Alistar 3000, which is projected to undertake inspection missions using videos and a wide array of sensors up to a depth of 3000 meters. They also had manipulator arms on display and demonstrations of the equipment, including a manipulator arm serving champagne, just to show how precise the equipment is. These manipulator arms are mostly used in ROV´s and not only have great movement precision but also are very strong and durable, being rated for depth of 6500 to 7500 meters, depending on the model.

An encapsulated dry transformer, produced by Orteng MCT, another branch of Orteng Group, dedicated to manufacturing power transformers for electric energy transmission and distribution. As it uses no oil there is no possibility of leaks or flames and it is claimed that the equipment does not to need maintenance, therefore there is no need to interrupt operations.

The transformer was conceived to work in enclosed environments and restricted spaces. It´s reduced size and lack of oil and maintenance needs, make the equipment ideal for installation on oil rigs, and refineries. The transformers were launched in late 2010 and come in 150kVA to 5MVA power.

Orteng partnered with Brazilian construction giant Construcap in order to pursue the lucrative rig module building segment. As there are already over 40 rigs urgently needed by Petrobras and many more are expected to be ordered in the coming years, not only be Petrobras but also by other local and foreign players. Therefore many partnerships are being negotiated all along Brazil in order to try to secure some of these orders. Contrucap already has experience in the O&G sector and is already building a shipyard at the Suape Port in the Northeast state of Pernambuco, to build topside rig modules and for rig module integration.

The shipyard will have 400 thousand m², a 800 meter quay, with a depth of 16,5 meters and a 450 meter wide channel, which will allow it to service 2 FPSO at the same time. They will be capable of producing 35 thousand tons of steel per year and simultaneosly produce 40 modules. The total investment is of around $180 million and is expected to require 3,500 workers when complete.

Last but not least, the Orteng Group expanded to the O&G exploration segment in 2006, when it acquired exploratory blocks in the São Francisco Basin. Last August their investments began to pay off, with the discovery of hydrocarbons in the SF-T-132 Block. They have also have interests in the Parnaiba basin, having acquired 2D seismic data for a 440 k m² area, where they forecast to begin drilling in 2012.

Claudio Paschoa

• Geophysical Services
• AUV Survey Services
• Oceanography Services
• Environmental Monitoring
• C-Nav World DGPS