Wheatstone Environmental Water Survey

Bhagwan Marine were contracted by Chevron Australia to provide a vessel complete with a ROV, Survey Navigation, Project Management and Engineering services for an “In Water” Environmental survey. Bhagwan provided the DP2 DSV Bhagwan Dryden to conduct these activities while working alongside Chevron’s Environmental contractor AECOM.

Work was conducted in November 2018 for Chevron at the Wheatstone Platform on the NW Shelf, offshore Western Australia. An environmentally safe dye was discharged through the water discharge tanks from the Wheatstone Platform. AECOM performed a series of sample collections via various techniques while offshore and later employed data analysis and modelling on the water discharge for Chevron. Bhagwan Marine worked alongside Fugro for engineering design and fabrication of water sampling units and a real time output water fluorometer fitted to the ROV for the environmentalists. The large deck space and the Dryden’s large A-frame and deck winch proved very useful for over-boarding large seabed mooring spreads to allow mid-water column current data collection for the modelling of the water discharge from the platform.

The crew of the Dryden were put to the test for being responsible to deploy and recover an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle belonging to BlueOcean Monitoring. This vehicle was pre-programmed from Houston, Texas, USA for its flight path while in the water after being deployed from the Dryden. The AUV was fitted with water sampling sensors and swam autonomously around the Wheatstone platform and recovered to the Dryden for data download. The number of contractors, range of activities and variety of equipment utilised on this project highlighted Bhagwan’s ability to work alongside multiple contractors and coordinate and facilitate were required on behalf of our client.