Ocyan, an oil and gas company, has signed a cooperation agreement with Petrobras for the second phase of development of the ROBIN project, a robot for light intervention in oil wells. The pioneering technology, developed by Petrobras with Senai Cimatec, seeks to avoid the high cost of the traditional model that uses drilling rigs, with daily rates that can exceed USD 400,000, to carry out simpler activities of light interventions, called "light workover", such as cleaning and unblocking of wells, replacement of valves and equipment in the Production string, as well as monitoring of sensors. 

Carried out by Ocyan in partnership with Senai Cimatec, the new stage of the project will last 20 months.  The investment of R$22 million in this phase will be made by Petrobras using funds from the PD&I (Research, Development and Innovation) Clause of the National Petroleum Agency (ANP).

In addition to reducing costs, the use of the robot - in wells located more than 2,000 meters deep - is intended to reduce the duration of interventions, the number of people involved - making the operation safer, reducing exposure to environmental risks as well as reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 

With the help of a smaller vessel, the aim is for the robot to enable much more agile, economical, safe and environmentally sustainable interventions, as well as freeing up the rigs for their main function of heavy drilling. "It's an unprecedented, revolutionary project. We've already had the first stage, carried out by SENAI CIMATEC, and now we're entering phase 2, in which we're going to raise the level of technological maturity to TRL 4. We expect to have commercial technology within four to five years," says Rodrigo Chamusca, Executive Manager of Digital Business and Technology at Ocyan.