Seafloor Production Tools for the Resources of the Future

Abstract

Abstract Soil Machine Dynamics (SMD) is one of the world's leading subsea engineering companies specialising in the design, manufacture, assembly and marinisation of equipment for the oil and gas, telecommunications, defence, scientific, renewable and mining sectors. The company has progressively developed since 1971, quickly gaining a reputation for supplying innovative equipment for the burial of pipelines and cables. In 2003, with the acquisition of Hydrovision, we entered the work-class ROV market. Further growth led to the recent acquisition of Hallin Robotics and an expansion from our deep-sea trenching skills base into seafloor mining equipment. This paper focuses on the design of Seafloor Production Tools (SPT's) for Nautilus Minerals Inc.(NMI)'s Solwara 1 copper/gold deposits in the Bismarck Sea, off Papua New Guinea. The design solutions adopted are described, highlighting advances and adaptations to existing mining and dredging technology. In particular, the paper focuses on the solutions developed to overcome challenges relating to;specific operating conditions in the Bismarck Sea,marinisation of heavy duty mining equipment for deep-sea operation,remote control of machines and pilot interfaces,interfaces with Nautilus' Production Support Vessel (PSV) and Subsea Lifting Pumps (SSLP). This project is undoubtedly one of the most exciting offshore engineering projects currently being undertaken. There has been keen interest from subsea, mining and dredging component suppliers and a high level of cross-industry cooperation since the start of the project. The technology described will help encourage subsea mining companies to seek out new deposits and cross resource frontiers that were hitherto considered as inaccessible. Introduction As economic surface resources are gradually depleted, the search for replacement mineral commodities is shifting towards new environments. SMD's client, Nautilus Minerals Inc. is a pioneer in the exploration of the seafloor to find economically attractive massive sulphide deposits. As Nautilus's exploration programme releases more geological and geotechnical detail and mining plans become firmer, the design of tools to exploit the sulphide deposits is being refined. Material strengths- accounting for estimates of hyperbaric effects- are within the bounds of the strength of materials already excavated by subsea Rock Trenchers previously designed and built by SMD, such as " RT1??.