Offshore oil production is currently the next frontier for most oil and gas majors due to the high quantity of reserves in those locations. Offshore deployment is relatively immune to vandalization and the use of platforms reduce the footprint of the production facility. However, the pipelines are subject to other hazards such as corrosion and the effect of trawlers which can result in oil spills and its attendant devastating effect on the environment. Preemptive measures at ensuring that these leaks don’t occur have to be put in place to ensure that these leaks do not occur. One of such measures is regular monitoring of the pipeline but the nature of the offshore environment and the logistics required makes such monitoring very expensive. This paper presents the design of an autonomous pipeline surface inspection tool. The tool’s deployment can be controlled via acoustic signals or a tethered fiber optic link till it locates the pipeline. Thereafter it scans the surface of the pipeline from one end to the other depending on the sections of interest. When the scanning is complete, the tool is automatically ejected to the ocean surface from where the acquired data is transmitted via satellite to the office location for processing while the tool itself is retrieved by boat. The acquired data can also be transmitted in real time if the fiber optic tethering is used in the deployment. This system provides a cheap and cost effective tool for the monitoring of offshore pipelines and it enables the localization of any potential failure or corrosion point before it degenerates into a leak.
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