ROV Stab Plate for Subsea Decommissioning

A stab plate designed for remotely operated hydraulic drilling equipment in the deep sea guarantees no spill and a fail-safe system.

Previous versions of the stab plate have been used successfully in deep-sea applications. Naturally, safety and reliability are a top priority to avoid contaminations to the environment. 

Designed for decommissioning applications

Decommissioning of old oil rigs offer some big challenges. The evolution of oil rigs has gone from concrete oil rigs with cellular base for oil storage on the ocean bottom, to modern methods with offshore pipelines. Unused rigs need to be decommissioned according to OSPAR requirements where no disused rigs or pipelines that may contain hazardous substances, may be left offshore. This is a procedure that requires fail-safe methods and reliable tools with high precision. In this specific application, a quick connect solution was designed to power drilling equipment for the inspection of concrete cells in Gravity-Based Structures (GBS) on the ocean bottom.

The Solution

The female plate is handled by the ROV (Remotely operated underwater vehicle) and connects to the male plate at the bottom of the ocean. It is designed to be controlled using an ROV. The plate consists of 2 Series 766 hydraulic couplings in a 100% stainless steel body. It has a unique heat treatment to withstand deep-sea operation.