“Offshore” diving
The Basque company Commercial Diving Activities, dedicated to professional diving in all its fields, will be selected to carry out the installation, supervision and subsequent testing of an innovative system of saturation for dives up to 600 meters deep with capacity for 10 divers. The system will be installed on the ship ARBOLA GRANDE, a DPV 2 (Dynamic Positioning Vessel) of 5530 Tons.
Increased investment in oil and gas pipelines
The giant Mexican group of companies DIAVAZ, dedicated to the oil industry, will be the one to invest approximately 23 million dollars in this new saturation system, providing one of its ships with the capacity to perform deeper dives and with a greater number of divers operating in these extreme conditions.
In 2006 Mexico was the sixth largest oil producer in the world, and in 2012 found two new large oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico, thus ensuring the flow of investments in infrastructure and services for the ancillary industry, at least in the following decades.
Bilbao – New Orleans – Gulf of Mexico connection
Manufactured in North America, the ORCA III system, manufactured by AQUA AIR INDUSTRIES in New Orleans, a leading company in saturation systems and hyperbaric chambers, has among its elements some innovations especially in safety and rescue in case of an emergency on the surface.
Designed to support 10 divers and work at a maximum depth of 600 meters, the ORCA III makes it possible to perform some of the most demanding jobs such as the so-called “hot tapping diving” in which divers make pipe connections with oil or fluids at depth without interrupting their constant flow.
In close collaboration, the Biscayan company CDA and AAI will be responsible for bringing this project to fruition in the Gulf of Mexico.
How does it work?
In a saturation diving complex, the divers are compressed at the surface in the main chamber to the pressure at which they intend to work, then the release system submerges the pressurized bell to the place where the intensive work is carried out at great depths. Once the work shift is over, the bell ascends at high speed to the surface where it will be coupled to the main chamber to allow the exchange for new divers who will descend again to continue the work. The team of up to 10 divers will spend several days in this work cycle without leaving the pressurized habitat.
