As part of a 3-year Frame Agreement with Statoil, ASA, Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. have completed a 3 month offshore soil investigation campaign utilizing one of its ROVDrill Mk-2 seabed drill systems. Work was undertaken on-board Helix’s chartered vessel, MSV Deep Cygnus.
This work formed part of the largest offshore soil investigation contract awarded by Statoil this year, resulting in operations in both the Barents and North Sea. The recently developed piston sampler which was designed in association with Gardline Geosciences Limited was a great success and has continuously returned Class 1 samples in very soft to stiff clays for advanced soil laboratory testing.
With the quality of the soil samples recently acquired by the piston sampler and the stable platform provided by ROVDrill Mk-2, Helix and Gardline have secured other opportunities to prove the effectiveness of this technology. Helix, under an on-going agreement with Gardline, provides a modern site investigation package based on both traditional and robotic technologies.
The ROVDrill Mk-2 spread focuses on obtaining the high quality of soil and rock samples in all water depths, in operations close to existing offshore infrastructure and in challenging environmental conditions such as high seabed currents.
Press Release, October 04, 2013