ROV Tooling Rental & Service
Flexible Risers and Umbilical Marine Growth Cleaning
Project Overview
Seanergy successfully executed a marine growth cleaning campaign on flexible risers and umbilical in the Jubilee and TEN fields offshore Ghana. The project was performed onboard the Bourbon Evolution 804 using two work-class ROVs (XLX 112 and XLX 113).
Scope of Work
The campaign targeted all installed flexible risers and umbilical from 30m to 300m water depth. Prior to cleaning, ROVs conducted detailed as-found surveys. Following operations, as-left surveys documented the cleaned condition of each riser.
Cleaning was executed using specialized tooling suite:
- FlexiClean – Hydraulically driven brush for soft growth removal
- FlexiTRIC Small–XL – Cleaning tools for tubular geometries from 100mm to 500mm OD
Technical Challenges & Approach
Marine growth characteristics varied with depth:
- 300m–80mwd: Predominantly soft growth
- 80m–60mwd: Increasing hard growth
- 60m–30mwd: Dense barnacle coverage (15–20cm length, near 100% coverage)
Hard barnacles in tropical waters are known to be difficult to dislodge. To ensure tool fit and effectiveness, riser ODs were verified against tolerances, and tool adjustments were made in-situ to compensate for wear and marine growth thickness.
Results & Findings
- All risers and umbilical were cleaned within scope, restoring surfaces to an inspection-ready state.
- Conservative estimates indicate 5.3–5.7 tons of marine growth removed per riser, equating to ~160–170 tons across the campaign.
- Cleaning substantially reduced additional hydrodynamic loading and mass effects, supporting long-term riser integrity and fatigue life.
- QA documentation included before/during/after image sets for each riser section.
Conclusion
This project demonstrated the effectiveness of our preferred cleaning tooling in challenging tropical water conditions. The successful removal of extensive hard and soft marine growth provided the client with assurance of integrity compliance and reduced operational risks associated with marine fouling.
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