This ‘snake robot’ will fix pipelines on the ocean floor

Trondheim, Norway CNN Business — The deep-sea oil and gas industry has a vast and costly infrastructure to maintain. That can cost up to $100,000 per day, according to Pål Liljebäck, chief technology officer with Eelume Subsea Intervention, which developed the robot. Liljebäck says that by “enabling the robot to become a subsea resident living in a docking station, it can be mobilized at any time to do inspections and intervention tasks, and thereby reducing the need for costly surface vessels.” Eelume can work autonomously on tasks assigned from a control room onshore, and send back video and data. Eelume Subsea Intervention Undersea revolution The global underwater robotics market is expected to be worth around $7 billion in 2025, according to analysts, and other companies are in the process of commercializing novel deep-sea drone and robot technology. “The diesel burning surface vessels emit a lot of CO2 but robots, like Eelume, emit almost nothing.” Eelume Subsea Intervention and Equinor will carry out final testing on the seabed later this year at the Åsgard oil and gas field.