Project Description

Hydrofix were contracted to provide project management services for a UXO survey in the Baltic in 2019. UXO presents a potential risk to offshore projects in the Baltic Sea, principally due to the UXO residue from World War One (WWI) and World War Two (WWII).

Within the Baltic Sea, UXO contamination is principally the result of military activity over two World Wars and related munitions dumping. British air laid ground mine “gardens”, bombing, submarine operations, naval surface conflict, modern military training exercises, aircraft wrecks and ship wrecks have all played a part in potentially contaminating the pipeline route

The survey was performed to enable the safe installation of a pipeline which crosses through several different territorial waters. The survey strategy was to identify pUXO for route avoidance. Hydrofix provided Offshore Technical Supervisors aboard the survey vessels to oversee the day-to-day technical management of contractors both for the geophysical and UXO survey and the subsequent ROV investigation.

Due to the avoidance strategy, it was crucial that the survey results were turned around in almost real-time to widen the survey corridor were acquired and so Hydrofix also oversaw the QC of the UXO data and the pUXO target rationalisation in order to provide on-the-spot confirmation of the data.