Saab Seaeye Panther XT Plus work ROV
With the subsea industry looking to cut costs, Bluestream Offshore has ordered a fourth Saab Seaeye Panther XT Plus ROV to undertake tasks normally performed by hydraulic vehicles.
“Our clients want high-spec equipment to take on more complex construction work at a lower cost, ” says Bluestream’s managing director, Rolf de Vries.
“For instance, we have proved that many construction tasks can be undertaken by a Seaeye Panther XT Plus fitted with Schilling manipulators combined with hydraulic powered ROV tooling, rather than an complex capital intensive hydraulic ROV system.”
An electric work ROV system also needs less space, fewer staff and is much faster to deploy, he says, which bring considerable savings in operational costs when compared to a large hydraulic work class ROV. The mobilisation window of 12 hours and wide variation of tasks increases the utilization of the systems and so the economics, he adds.
“We chose another Panther because it’s a high level system with the technical capability that allows us to develop complex work scopes through integrating more work-class tooling to meet the needs of our clients for subsea intervention tasks.”
New Panther adds to Bluestream’s 17-strong
Saab Seaeye ROV fleet
He explains that the Saab Seaeye system architecture offers a solid base for adding more system options as well as enabling his engineers to further integrate his company’s own developed technology for subsea intervention tooling into the system development. “We believe in evolution, step by step, project by project, to develop us further instead of revolution.
” Bluestream engineers also benefit from the Panther’s 10-strong thruster power and design architecture that allows it to accommodate a wide range of tooling, yet remain manoeuvrable and able to work in strong currents.
The addition of another Panther now brings Bluestream’s fleet of ROVs to 17 Saab Seaeye vehicles.
Bluestream is investing heavily in expanding its field of operations and has recently worked in Russia and the Gulf of Mexico where Rolf de Vries says he could rely upon the Saab Seaeye vehicles to provide a stable platform for whatever task was required.
Bluestream Offshore provide a wide range of services to the international oil and gas industry, along with the renewable and maritime sectors.
Saab Seaeye is the world’s largest manufacturer of electric ROVs, and now includes Saab’s underwater vehicle range of tethered, autonomous and hybrid underwater vehicle systems for the defence industry.
