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C & C's AUV Continues to Set The Benchmark

October 01, 2002 - C & C Technologies recently completed a deepwater AUV pipeline and site survey for Total Fina Elf (TFE) in the Girassol and Rosa Lirio fields. This survey area is located in Angolas Block 17, 120 nautical miles northwest of Luanda in 1,350 meters of water. This is yet another milestone in the C & C C-Surveyor I AUV's impressive performance record.

C & C's C-Surveyor I has logged over 11,000 km of deepwater surveys since January 2000, this project was unique; precise lines were traversed under and around the gigantic Floating, Production, Storage, and Offloading Unit (FPSO), Girassol, whose hull is 300 meters long and has deadweight of 345,000 tons. Girassol is producing approximately 250,000 barrels of oil per day and has an oil storage capacity of two million barrels.

The architectural design of the subsea equipment in place during the survey provided new challenges to C & C's AUV. Christmas trees, riser cables, manifolds, pipeline bundles, and a variety of other installations served as seafloor obstacles, which had to be avoided by the AUV during its mission. This project proved how invaluable a tool C & C's AUV is for floating production technology projects.

Prior to the C-Surveyor I deployment, its control computer was uploaded with a predefined survey grid designed to avoid the existing subsea obstacles. Along this survey grid, the AUV collected detailed data, including subbottom, side-scan sonar, and multibeam, while acoustically transmitting sub-sampled information to the AUVs mothership for real-time QA/QC purposes.

After completion of this TFE project, the RV Rig Supporter transited to the coast of Cote DIvoire where it successfully performed an AUV mapping project in the offshore BAOBAB field for Canadian Natural Resources International (CNRI).

Contact: info@cctechnol.com