With the sharp increase in ship and shipyard construction, port construction and port safety awareness, all prompted by the mayor pre-salt and post salt oil discoveries off Brazil, many new local service companies, specialized in subsea services have been launched. Some of them are actually developing, Work Class ROV´s in Brazil using foreign or even locally developed technology. There has also been a marked demand increase for smaller ROV´s to be used in various fields including video inspection, side-scan sonar mapping, marine environmental research and training.
It is likely that demand for small AUV´s will be increasing steadily as they can be very useful for environmental research, subsea mapping and even search and rescue operations by fire departments and police agencies, such as is commonly done in more technologically developed countries. The truth is that the Brazilian subsea industry, at all levels, is trying to catch up to foreign subsea equipment providers, in order to compete for future service and equipment orders from national oil operator Petrobras and other players involved in the O&G industry in Brazil and of course orders from different sectors within the growing local shipping industry.
One of these national companies which are looking at a bright and prosperous future is Nutecmar, based in the coastal city of Santos, São Paulo. Santos has the largest port in the country and is also one of the main hubs for transportation of workforce, supplies and equipment to the rigs, MODUs, FPSOs which operated the deepwater pre-salt plays, some located over 300km from the coast.
Nutecmar specializes in marine and environmental subsea technology, including the sales, rentals and service of ROVs and Side Scan Sonars . Nutecmar operates its own 43 foot deployment vessel in Brazil, which can be rented along with subsea equipment and operators.
They are also one of the leaders in ROVs pilot capability building courses, periodically offering Mini ROV pilot training courses.
Nutecmar is also the exclusive GNOM ROV dealer for Latin America. Gnom ROVs were developed in the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, from the Russian Academy of Sciences, and won the world’s highest prizes in international technology contests.
Among its most important features, it is controlled by the thinnest tether in the world and the use of magnetically coupled thrusters, which result in it handling well, and reliable operation with very low maintenance, at a affordable cost for research and general industry use.
Nutecmar, which stands for Nucleus of Marine and Environmental Technology, has also recently finalized an agreement to represent an important international shallow water ROV manufacturer in Latin America, more details on this new development should be forthcoming soon.
For more information, check out, www.nutecmar.com
Claudio Paschoa