Wood hopes offshore AI saves

Wood Group has developed an artificial intelligence program to speed up inspection work on offshore oil and gas assets.

The engineering company worked on the project over 12 months with $288,600 of support from industry body National Energy Resources Australia.

The AI is a computer vision program, a technology in which a computer can interpret videos or images much more quickly than a human.

In this case, the AI will trawl through offshore inspection video footage looking for signs of faults or failures.

The saved time, and reduction in costs for sending staff to offshore rigs, could be worth $2.8 billion for the industry, NERA said.

“This project is improving the inspection of infrastructure that’s long been a highly labour intensive and dangerous activity,” NERA chief executive Miranda Taylor said.

“Through this project we’re helping to reduce the need for technicians to spend long hours offshore examining footage of equipment by using software developed by Wood to examine the footage under the control of technicians who can remain safely onshore.

“We’re excited to see potential opportunities emerging for this solution to be deployed into a number of other fields.”

Wood Group president of growth and development Azad Hessamodini said the technology would deliver a safer and faster inspection approach.