Page 38: of Marine Technology Magazine (March 2019)

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Martin McDonald, SVP, ROV Division, Oceaneering

A Millennium ROV recovered from the water.

Images: Oceanieering electric manipulators coming into play, reducing the reliance on When you look at the market today, what do you see? hydraulic systems. ROVs today still require some heavy-duty Where do you see opportunity?

pumping and intervention capabilities, so that’s the challenge The opportunities exist in the themes I mentioned earlier. between getting the all-electric systems vs. hydraulic systems. We have been affected like everyone else in this prolonged

Today, for example, electric manipulators offer less than 50% downturn. We are a leaner and more ef? cient organization. of the lift capability and ef? ciency of a hydraulic manipulator. We have a signi? cant geographic spread across the globe. The

We’re talking speci? cally about ROVs, but critical compo- opportunities lie in us collaborating with our customers to not nents of the ROV system are the handling systems and reli- only lower the costs of their ? eld developments, but to also ability of the deepwater umbilicals. Oceaneering has invested lower the operational costs of their ? elds. We are designing a signi? cant amount of money on the research and develop- our next generation of vehicles to participate in those themes: ment (R&D) of umbilical design and maintenance. As a result, autonomy and remote operations, residency, and reliability of we have been able to implement better maintenance plans that those systems. result in improved life expectancy, lower cost of maintenance, Our industry has structurally changed. We are living in a low and improved life expectancy of our umbilicals and handling oil price environment, and this is the new norm. We are de- systems. In the automated space, ultimately, we see ourselves signing our systems and service offerings to be pro? table and going toward automated launch and recovery systems as well. sustainable in this low oil price environment.

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