PlanSea and NSC complete development of subsea decommissioning AI-demonstrator

Addressing the challenges of large-scale, complex, standalone and campaign-based subsea decommissioning in the estimated £21bn UK market over the next ten years, the demonstrator provides stakeholders with a cost-effective and resource-efficient outcome while contributing to net zero targets by reducing emissions.

The joint team has designed the software to ingest information from both private and existing publicly available pipeline and structure databases, transforming that data into task-based activities compatible with current PlanSea visualisation and optimisation software.

The software then creates standalone/campaign plans showing task allocations, vessel schedules and usage analysis. Varying fleet composition and tooling/resource functionality can be simulated to provide alternative strategies.

The software also allows for the simulation of dynamic events, for example, weather disruption and emergencies.

A full visualisation of vessel trips and campaigns is displayed using PlanSea’s interactive dashboard. This includes automatically providing forecast project emissions and costs, sailing times, fuel consumption and other KPIs.

PlanSea is now engaging with the sector to deliver this service on a global consultancy basis, both for operator strategic planning and contractors seeking to optimise fleet and other resources.

Jim Cargill, CEO of PlanSea said: “The NSC and PlanSea have successfully collaborated for many years to utilise AI to optimise marine logistics, and this logical extension of our joint technological capabilities to cover subsea decommissioning evidences a UK centre of excellence in this sector. This is another step in our quest to digitalise and optimise offshore operations whilst at the same time reducing costs and emissions.”

Dr. Ciprian Zavoianu, NSC Research Programme Lead and Principal Investigator for this project, added: “Together with my NSC colleagues, Dr. Fyvie and Dr. Santos, I’ve had another great experience working with PlanSea on the timely delivery of a challenging piece of marine logistics applied research. Dr Fyvie has been instrumental in developing a robust software demonstrator that can ingest decommissioning data from multiple sources and subsequently leverage a bespoke AI-enhanced scheduler to optimise fleet and resource allocation whilst also facilitating the integration of expert insight and feedback regarding operations modelling.”

This project was funded in part by a grant awarded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) in partnership with Scottish Enterprise (SE).