Page 36: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2024)

35 37

FEATURE SEABED MINING

Patania II uses jet water pumps to lift nodules into a collection drum.

Images courtesy of GSR

Onboard technology developments include the vessel’s ted with low-impact tracks, and to further limit sediment launch and recovery system (LARS) which deploys and disturbance, it has a fnes rejection system.

recovers the collector and feeds its power and control um- This type of technology was frst tested successfully in bilical. It has passive heave compensation which nullifes the 1970s by major Western corporations like Shell, BP and the wave, current and vessel motions that infuence loads Kennecott. “The focus since then has been on scaling while in the power umbilical. The LARS can operate in up to ensuring the lightest environmental impact,” says The Met- 3.5m wave height signifcant. The physical connection als Company CEO Gerard Barron. In-feld collection sys- and disconnection between collector and power umbilical tem trials conducted in 2022, where TMC collected 3,000 is performed subsea, and the LARS is ftted with a routing tonnes of nodules, have helped further advance the design.

system that keeps the umbilical in a single plane during Digital twin technology analyzes data gathered from collector operations. multiple sensors and assets to enable 3D visualization of

The collector’s front-mounted Coandã-effect nozzles operations in real time. AI modelling can then determine guide water over the seabed, creating negative pressure and the environmental impacts of the operation and test how, a suction effect that picks up nodules. A diffuser at the rear for example, how increasing production rate or collec- creates an exit from where the sediment fows out, over tor speed would affect sediment mobilization and enable 90% of which stays close to the seabed. The collector is ft- TMC to model different scenarios to reduce this impact, 36 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM