Lightweight Cryogenic Marine Heavy Lift Buoyancy System

There is a continual search for new methods of installing and decommissioning subsea structures in order to improve process control and lower operational cost. The Cryogenic Buoyancy System (CBS) has been developed to address this issue. CBS is a patented, autonomous, remote, heavy-lift system delivering precisely controlled levels of buoyancy for use in lifting and lowering subsea loads of varying magnitude. The system is of modular design facilitating transportation, maintenance and storage. CBS is fully scalable, a single unit may be designed to provide a lift capability of less than 1Te or greater than 1000Te, and it is fully reusable. CBS delivers lift through the generation of buoyancy. It encapsulates a cryogenic dewar which contains liquid Nitrogen (LIN), this being readily available, inexpensive, non-corrosive, non-toxic and ecologically clean. When buoyancy is required, a precisely controlled volume of LIN is vaporized, the resulting gas being used to displace seawater. CBS incorporates its own computerised control system enabling the delivery of precisely measured buoyancy according to pre-programmed parameters. Via a non-load bearing data-link umbilical, telemetric data is returned to a shipboard operator who has the ability to override the control system and exert manual control. CBS has the ability to operate to the greatest ocean depths.