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W I R E L I N E
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MARINE BIODIVERSITY
ENVIRONMENT
ROVing reporters
The project evolved in the UK in
the early 2000s during collaboration
between the industry and
marine scientists at the NOC on
environmental assessment work for
BP in the west of Shetland. SERPENT
Project leader Daniel says it became
clear during that time that there
was a unique opportunity to use the
offshore infrastructure to pursue
more than one kind of exploration.
“There were many remotely-operated
vehicles (ROVs) in use in UK waters
but they weren’t operating 24/7,” says
Daniel. “We didn’t have a deep-water
science-class submersible facility of
any kind at the time in the UK so
the ROVs were clearly a resource we
could really benefit from.”
It’s a view echoed by Dr Ian Hudson,
who is currently HR director for
Europe, Africa and Asia at offshore
drilling company Transocean, one of
the founding partners of SERPENT.
Ian got involved while working for
NOC on his PhD project. “I was given
the opportunity to use the equipment
on a large ROV operating in BP’s
Schiehallion field and came back with
footage, photos and data. That single
two-week trip produced enough
material for three research papers on
marine life in the region.”
One of the early, exciting discoveries
was a snapshot of a monkfish feeding
on a cod (see image overleaf ).
“Scientists knew how monkfish
operated – sitting on the seabed and
attracting food – but no-one had
actually seen it happen in the deep
ocean before,” says Daniel.
The results set in motion a process
that led to SERPENT being formed
– a collaboration between operator
BP, drilling company Transocean,
offshore services contractor
Subsea 7 and NOC. The initiative
taps into the industry’s ROV filming
and data collection capabilities and
quickly expanded to embrace other
offshore operators and contractors.
It’s now a global programme,
featuring research work on the
UK Continental Shelf, as well as
in Canada, West Africa, Australia,
Venezuela and many more.
“It’s an exciting and ground-breaking
concept,” enthuses Subsea 7’s
group environmental manager Lala
Gandilova. As a founding partner of the
SERPENT project, the company has
provided access to its ROV technology
for hundreds of hours of operations.
“SERPENT is an exceptionally
powerful tool to promote awareness of
deep sea life. Using cutting-edge ROV
technology to support the worldwide
science community is incredibly
Pictured (left) a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and (right) SERPENT scientists
in the ROV control van. The SERPENT Project makes use of the oil and gas
industry’s ROVs to explore previously inaccessible seabed locations
“We’ve done a huge
amount of work in the
UK by accessing many
hundreds of hours of ROV
time that would have cost
us millions of pounds.”
10
YEARS
THE LIFESPAN OF THE PROJECT SO FAR
2,500
MEDIA FILES
UNIQUE PHOTOS AND VIDEO CLIPS GATHERED
IN UK WATERS AND OVERSEAS
15
MISSIONS
COMPLETED IN UK WATERS
1
YEAR
THE EQUIVALENT TIME SPENT BY SERPENT SCIENTISTS ON
OFFSHORE MISSIONS WORLDWIDE
30
RESEARCH PAPERS
THE NUMBER OF PEER-REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC PAPERS
GENERATED BY THE PROJECT
SERPENT PROJECT BY NUMBERS…
