Aquabotix underwater drones to help US hurricane recovery

Robotics firm Aquabotix expects increased demand for its underwater drones to help repair battered US oil rigs.

One of Aquabotix’s underwater drones

Australian robotics company Aquabotix expects increased demand for its underwater drones to help assess and repair damage to offshore US oil rigs in the wake of hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

Aquabotix (UUV) says it’s “actively engaging” with specialist distributors in the Gulf of Mexico, existing oil and gas industry companies and state and local governments to equip them with commercial-grade, remotely-operated vehicles.

“The reconstruction effort will involve a substantial amount of underwater work,” the company said today.

“The company expects that it will substantially increase the need for its vehicles.”

A significant amount of offshore energy production and around a third of US oil refining takes place in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil and gas production in the Gulf has been slashed since the hurricanes, which forced the evacuation of more than 100 of the over 700 offshore rigs.

The recovery effort in the wake of the hurricanes is expected to take years. Preliminary estimates of economic losses are between $US70 billion and $US200 billion.

Aquabotix has existing oil and gas industry customers and owns the intellectual property in a range of unmanned underwater vehicles and underwater camera products. It is one of a few companies worldwide offering commercially-available hybrid underwater drones.