Page 39: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2024)

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The four-kilometer airlift riser system installed upon the Hidden Gem is constructed from multiple sections of piping which must be sequentially lowered to the seafloor.

Hundreds of

Impossible

Metals’ Eureka III collectors could be deployed concurrently.

SMD’s QCollector has been engineered to have a low submerged weight with the use of light plastic tracks and buoyant syntactic foam.

Image courtesy of SMD Image courtesy of TMC

Image courtesy of Impossible Metals

Oil States’ Merlin™ riser systems were successfully de- erations, with scale up from there possible gradually. ployed on both the TMC / Allseas and JAMSTEC 2022 Hundreds of collectors can be deployed concurrently. pilot projects. They also hold a world record water depth Once a collector has achieved its 6,000kg payload, it can for a producing riser system of 14,764 feet. return to the surface, and as the surface vessel reaches ca-

Impossible Metals is developing a nodule collector pacity, it can return to shore while the collectors continue which, unlike other technologies, is untethered and hov- to load on a second vessel. ers above the seabed, picking nodules with robotic arms. There is no sediment release mid-water like the other

CEO Oliver Gunasekara cites three unique developments: technologies and no noise from pumps or the DP system the battery-operated buoyancy engine, fast-acting robotic of vessels. “We have really gone out of our way to mitigate arms and the AI algorithms that guide them, identifying all of the negative feedback that the industry has received.” and avoiding nodules with visible life present. Still, the pushback continues. A 2023 Planet Tracker re-

A second-generation collector, Eureka II, is currently port highlighted that, like crude oil, nodules take millions being tested off the US east coast. It has three arms, but of years to form, so biodiversity loss would essentially be the much larger Eureka III will have 16 arms. Gunasekara permanent. And in February 2024, the European Parlia- estimates that a feet of around 16 of these autonomous ment passed a resolution raising concerns about Norway’s collectors would be a break-even point for commercial op- mining intentions.

MARCH/APRIL 2024 OFFSHORE ENGINEER 39