Oil spill clean up of shoreline contamination.

13th July 2010

Where seaborne heavy oil and tar deposits itself on the shoreline, the cleanup can be very costly and time consuming.

We have carried out tests on the Aquabrade blasting systems for removal and decontamination of thick deposits on harbour walls, dock gates and hulls of ship.   This together with our customer’s feedback indicated that Aquabrade has a role to play at removal of soft sticky coatings.   This is due to the entrained grit combining with the oil under pressure and the wet air stream emulsifying the combination.  The result is a quick cleaning of contaminated surfaces and the residual oil detaching from the surface in clumps, which are then easily collected from the seabed.

Aquabrade is in service with military sub-sea clean-up teams and is being used in the ongoing decontamination of the sunken battleship Ark Royal in Scapa Flow, which, after 70 years on the seabed has started to leak oil, threatening the neighbouring fishing communities.

Grit Blaster Rental

6th April 2009

Wet grit blasting machines are now available for rental.  The Harbour Aquabrade system is now available for hire for clients wanting short term blasting either for evaluation or on short term projects where purchasing is uneconomic.

Harbour Aquabrade is designed for rapid removal of corrosion and surface coating from stonework, steel and similar surfaces. Typical applications are;

• Stone and brickwork cleaning of buildings
• Corroded steelwork of pipelines, oil platform legs caissons etc
• Cleaning of paint and corrosion from ship’s superstructure and hulls
• Removal of road markings without damage to the road surface
• Underwater cleaning of pilings, moorings pipeline manifolds
• Subsea patch repairs to ships hulls

Harbour Aquabrade is highly adaptable for hard and soft surfaces, and is entirely self contained for remote locations requiring only compressed air.  Grit and water stored on-board the machine allow up to 60 minutes operation without refilling.

The benefit for shallow water diving is in the system’s low pressure operation and small back pressure, making subsea operation safe and stress free.

Contact the company for availability.

Subsea Blast Cleaner has Extended Depth

10th February 2009

The Harbour Aquabrade system of subsea grit blasting hasbeen given an extended depth option. Previously specified for operations down to 10 metres underwater for blast cleaning of ship’s hulls,  now, following discussions with clients, an extended version has been produced for operational depths to 25 metres.  This enables operations for cleaning shallow water pipelines, subsea manifolds for SPM and Calm tanker loading buoys.  The system is designed to operate independently at remote sites and operated for up to 90 minutes without reloading water or grit.

Deeper underwater blasting is available from the larger Sub-Aquabrade system allowing working to 60 metres (Sub-Aquabrade SW) and to 120 metres (Sub-Aquabrade DW).

Shown is Harbour Aquabrade as recently supplied for offshore opertation on Africa’s West Coast

Subsea Grit Blasting for UK’s Ministry of Defence

10th February 2009

Fraser Pump and Engineering are pleased to announce that the UK Ministry of Defence have purchased Harbour Aquabrade for their Marine Salvage Operational Unit.   The Harbour Aquabrade system was chosen following field trials in clearing underwater contamination on steelwork and used by divers from both the Devonport and Greenock dockyards.  The equipment is considered to be suitable for air transport and will be available for immediate deployment worldwide, depending on operational requirements.