STREAM will provide a comprehensive strategic review, looking at the capabilities of robotics and autonomous systems for Long-Term Monitoring (LTM) pre-decommissioning and in perpetuity. The main impacts from this project will be the embedment of new knowledge within the industry sector, taking account of the lessons learnt within the academic community regarding the true capabilities of autonomous systems for LTM. The industry project partners are SLR, BMT Cordah, Gardline, and Marine Scotland. They will steer the strategic review, providing context with regards to the current practise and data expectations of the decommissioning community. Reviewing our current technological capabilities, this project will, in-turn, identify the knowledge gaps that restrict the adoption of autonomous technology within the sector. This valuable outcome will inform policy on environmental regulation of decommissioning operations and promote cost effective solutions for in-perpetuity environmental monitoring by offshore operators. It will also assist steering future development of this technology within the sector.

Many oil and gas fields are reaching the end of their lives. It is estimated that over 50 of the 475 structures that eventually will have to be decommissioned will be decommissioned by 2018. While most structures will be removed entirely, some larger platforms and pipelines currently cannot be removed without causing serious environmental harm. The structures that remain in place are cleaned and made safe and then they are regularly monitored by the oil and gas company that owns them to ensure that they are not causing any adverse impacts on the environment. Currently this monitoring is done using a survey ship, which at tens of thousands of pounds a day, becomes very expensive. This is not conducive to regular monitoring, which in turn increases the risks of any impacts going undetected. This project aims to introduce a new approach for monitoring of decommissioned structures - autonomous submarines. These vehicles are becoming more widely adopted by industry. It has been demonstrated that these vehicles can be launched from shore and carry out complex missions underwater, collecting information on the seabed type and biological environment, while also monitoring pollution. However, so far they have not yet been applied to decommissioning and existing sensors and protocols need to be reconfigured to collect the data that is required for environmental monitoring around decommissioned structures. Working with our project partners, Shell, BP, BEIS, Gardline and SeeByte, this project will address these challenges and develop approaches for collection of appropriate monitoring data to regularly assess the impact of decommissioned structures with autonomous vehicle. The approaches will be integrated within the standard practices of oil companies to ensure that they are realistic and widely adopted for monitoring. The integration of this new information with existing baseline information on the areas will also be considered. This will ultimately reduce the costs associated with monitoring and improve the quality and quantity of data that can be obtained, which will reduce the risk of environmental damage from decommissioned structures.