The project will bring to market a unique, innovative product, the RiserSure™ system, for assessing the condition of flexible riser pipes widely used in offshore oil and gas production. RiserSure™, is expected to generate a wider economic benefit and significant impact by developing new revenues for the consortium, improving the profitability of platform operators and NDT service providers as well as producing a quick return on the EU investment, reducing, at the same time, the environmental impact and leading to safety improvement of offshore production. The RiserSure™ product will initially generate significant revenue from sales of new equipment that will enhance the competitiveness and growth of the SME led consortium. As this is a finite market, it is expected that equipment sales will stabilise within around 3 years at 17units p.a. creating annual revenues of €9.35M by 2023. As the installed base continues to rise, provision of after-sales support in the form of software and hardware maintenance and servicing, repairs and training, will become an important contributor to profit, generating €6M p.a. revenue by 2023. During this period 64 new EU jobs will be created at InnoTecUK in manufacturing and after-sales support. 15% of net profits are expected to be returned to the consortium partners IKH, TWI and LSBIC as license fees (5% each), allowing them to expand their operations, employing up to 10 new staff within 5 years of the end of the project.
Revenue forecasts for the NDT service providers show potential revenues of €85M over five years, as well as around 470 new jobs created many of which will be in the EU. Moreover, the rapid commercial deployment of the RiserSure™ results and delivery of new services will make significant savings for operators in the oil and gas industries, by reducing incidence of costly and environmentally damaging leaks and failures, and improving, at the same time, the safety of their offshore operations.
Finally, based on the above projections, it is expected that the RiserSure™ project will have generated a cumulative net profit of €50M for the consortium within 5 years, giving a return on EU investment (€2.9M grant value) of17:1. For the NDT service providers RiserSure™ is expected to have generated cumulative profits of €100M in the same period, providing a ROI of 35:1. Wider economic benefit beyond commercial success for the consortium will come from reduced down time and production losses from leaks, which can cost €3M in lost production alone. If RiserSure™ prevented 20% of these incidents, that would give a cost saving to the industry of €54M p.a. and a return on EU investment of 96:1. Therefore, the total return on investment from manufacturing, after-sales support, new NDT service provision and savings to the industry would be 148:1. This economic benefit also reflects a wider impact on the environment by reducing pollution from loss of containment incidents and, especially, reducing the risk of possible environmental and human catastrophe.
