Proserv has officially launched a global research and development (R&D) hub in Norway to design innovative subsea controls and communications technologies.

 

This state-of-the-art R&D facility at Trondheim, Norway, represents a significant investment for the company and features an advanced electronics workshop spanning 500 square miles, a technology showroom for demonstrations and 1100 square miles of office space for 50 new offices.

 

Chief executive officer at Proserv, David Lamont, said: "The R&D facility represents another major milestone in Proserv's exceptional growth story. The centre will serve as a global hub for all of our subsea communications & controls R&D activities, which are at the core of our business, and where we will develop fit-for-purpose systems and solutions that are reliable, efficient and delivered in an ingeniously simple way for clients around the world.

 

As Norway's capital of technology, Trondheim was a natural fit for our R&D hub. It is home to The Norwegian University of Science and Technology and SINTEF, the largest independent research institute in Scandinavia, plus there is a large presence of energy companies based in the city."

 

Proserv is recognised for its innovations. The Trondheim team developed Proserv's Seahawk in-situ video surveillance system, a ground-breaking technology for environmental monitoring including retrofit on brownfield subsea installations.

 

The technology can be installed on a subsea Christmas tree or manifold to provide visual monitoring of potential leakages. High-quality video is taken by the camera which uses image analysis to detect gas leakages. It can provide an automatic warning through the customer's SCADA system and alerts the operations team to use the Seahawk to focus in on the area of concern without the need of subsea intervention. The Seahawk was developed as a permanent alternative to the costly and time-consuming method of deploying remotely operated vehicles (ROV) subsea for the monitoring of assets offshore.