News

Fiobuoy breaks into the oil & gas market

Fiomarine Industries Pty Ltd, Tasmania report that they have completed the sale of five of their unique mooring security and asset recovery system “Fiobuoy” to offshore operator URS Australia. The devices are being used to recover seabed instrumentation packages deployed along the route of an offshore pipeline in Western Australia. Using Fiobuoy offers the operator a simple diver free route to equipment recovery.

Fiobuoy is a novel submersible marine marker buoy and retrieval system. It allows valuable assets (scientific landers, mooring strings, monitoring packages, etc) to be securely hidden underwater and retrieved safely at a later time. The device first found favour within the defence market where it was identified as having enormous potential in enabling sensitive equipment to be covertly secured underwater at deeper depths than previously possible. Several navy departments are now active customers for Fiobuoy including, of note, the US Navy who now regularly top up their store of Fiobuoys having undertaken lengthy evaluation procedures. The evaluations demonstrated significant advantages of the system over other possible routes, including substantial “bottom line” savings.

The core product is available in Time/Date and Acoustic “on demand” versions. Both versions currently have 100m and 200m depth models. In simple terms the Fiobuoy remains tethered close to the secured underwater package until triggered by pre-set time/date or acoustic command. The Fiobuoy then release itself and unwinds to the surface where it sits as a surface marker until collected. Its trailing rope is then used to recover the seabed assets.

The URS Australia order represents the first breakthrough into the offshore minerals market.

Click here to enter the Fiobuoy information zone where further product details can be found. Also contact product specialist David Goldsmith at d.goldsmith@rsaqua.co.uk for quotations.