Chevron, the multinational energy corporation, has determined that mini remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) — commonly used to clean fishing vessels — could be used to clean marine growth from Chevron Thailand’s offshore oil and gas assets.

Following trials of the mini ROVs from Norwegian startup Bravo Marine, which were outfitted with a patented washing module, Chevron determined that the approach is safer, faster and easier to use for clearing unwanted marine growth — which adds weight to as well as damages protective coatings — from subsea oil and gas structures.

Source: Chevron

The removal of unwanted marine growth is traditionally carried out manually by teams of divers outfitted with high-pressure water jets. Yet, this approach poses health and safety risks and can also be time-consuming.

As such, the team sought to automate the process using two mini ROVs to clean underwater oil and gas platform structures. The company explained that the first ROV was used to film the cleaning process and the second ROV was used to do the actual scrubbing.

The ROV designated for cleaning features flexible arms that latch onto the platform structure and each of those arms is outfitted with four high-pressure nozzles as well as a rotating disk, or scraper, designed for scrubbing off growth.

The company suggests that the ROVs remove marine growth at double the efficiency of manual approaches.