Security of subsea gas pipelines: technological solutions for safe and rapid response

Abstract

The security of energy supplies is a primary objective for each country, and its relevance for national strategies has increased over the time, especially after the interruption of the gas flow via the Baltic Sea pipelines in September 2022. While the causes behind such damage may be investigated long term, some conclusions can already be drawn from a technical and engineering perspective. In case of potential damage, the most important action to undertake is a rapid inspection along the subsea pipeline to locate the damage and measure its extent so that emergency actions can be implemented to safeguard the asset and limit adverse consequences on production and to the environment. Such operation can be extremely dangerous for divers and human operators, since first damage assessment means they have to deal with unknown factors in the vicinity of a pipeline, which usually operates at high pressure. Since conventional remotely operated vehicles are constrained by tether length, the safest option would be to use a subsea drone with pre-programmed missions, hi-tech sensors and the capability to safely operate beyond the horizon. The same technological solution can be adopted for frequent and fully unmanned inspection missions, leveraging the artificial intelligence-driven navigation system enhanced by an active event-triggering mission re-planner for autonomous feature detection and localisation. This paper shares Saipem’s experience in developing and qualifying the Flatfish underwater drone, and how this can be used to enhance the security of subsea pipelines, or in the context of emergency operations.