SubSeaLase – Underwater laser cutting for high-speed and lower cost decommissioning of off-shore structures

英国石油天然气公司预测，到2040年，北海退役油田的市场价值将达到300亿英镑。其中约18亿英镑与海底切割活动直接相关，主要运营商要求切割技术灵活、快速、可靠、可远程部署且安全。因此，与现有的解决方案相比，一种更快、成本更低的深水和危险水域退役方法存在着工业需求和市场机会。SubSeaLase项目将通过开发和演示一种新型水下激光切割系统来解决这一需求，该系统最初可用于切割深度达100米的工业相关结构。该系统将由一个水下激光切割头组成，激光源和气体压缩机留在上层，部署在一个改进的ROV上。我们希望我们的方法比传统的切割方法快4倍；显著降低部署成本，提高英国退役供应链的竞争力。

Oil & Gas UK forecasts the market value of decommissioning the North Sea to be ~£30Bn by 2040.Approximately £1.8Bn of this is related directly to subsea cutting activities, with Main Operators requiringcutting technologies which are flexible, fast, reliable, deployable remotely and safe. As such, there is anindustrial need and market opportunity for a significantly quicker approach to lower cost decommissioning indeep and hazardous waters than exisiting solutions.The SubSeaLase project will address this need by developing and demonstrating a novel underwaterlaser cutting system which can be initially used for cutting industrial relevant structures at depths up to 100m.The system will consist of an underwater laser cutting head, with the laser source and gas compressorremaining topside, deployed on a modified ROV.We expect our approach to be 4 times faster than conventional cutting approaches; significantlyreducing deployment costs and increasing the competitiveness of the UK decomissioning supply-chain.