Background

A floating production, storage and offloading vessel is one of the hardest assets in industry to inspect properly. It is a process plant, a storage facility and a ship at once, it is a long way offshore, and it cannot stop producing while somebody looks at it. The conventional answer is rope access teams and scaffolding working through the structure over an extended period, which is slow, expensive, and puts people at height and in confined spaces to gather what is ultimately visual information.

Delta Scan was engaged in 2025 to carry out a full above-water integrity audit of a producing FPSO offshore West Africa, covering the entire vessel rather than a sampled portion of it.

Scope

  • Hull, above the waterline, across its full length
  • All process modules and topsides structures
  • Flare structure audit
  • Heli deck
  • Piping and supporting steelwork
  • Internal spaces surveyed with our proprietary Omnispect platform

How it was captured

External capture was flown by drone, close enough to resolve coating condition and corrosion on the hull and structures while the vessel stayed in production. Internal spaces were surveyed using 360 capture technology developed in-house, with tracked positioning so every image sits in its correct location on the asset rather than in an unsorted folder.

Findings were assessed with AI-assisted analysis and contextual review, which is what makes a survey of this size tractable: a full vessel produces far more inspection data than a team can reasonably work through by eye, and the value is in getting every defect found, located and rated rather than only the ones somebody happened to photograph.

What was inspected for

  • Corrosion across hull, structures and topsides
  • Coating breakdown and protective system condition
  • Piping condition and supports
  • Full dropped-object (DROPS) survey

Delivered

  • A navigable 3D digital twin of the complete vessel
  • A virtual walkthrough allowing the asset to be reviewed from shore
  • Detailed condition reporting against DNV and ISO class compliance requirements
  • Every finding severity rated
  • Recommended repairs with a prioritised action list

Outcome

The operator received a single, navigable record of the entire above-water asset, with every defect located on the vessel, rated for severity and tied to a recommended repair and priority. That turns an integrity audit from a stack of reports into something a maintenance team can plan a campaign against, and it allows the asset to be reviewed and re-reviewed from shore without returning to the vessel.

The same approach applies to hull audits, offshore structures and marine assets generally. Delta Scan carries out ship hull and offshore integrity audits above the waterline by drone and tracked internal capture, and below the waterline by ROV where a submerged inspection is in scope.