Utility ROV Services (URS) has launched a new mattress recovery tool (MRT) developed for the oil and gas decommissioning market.

The tool has been designed to recover concrete mattresses that have been installed in oil and gas fields to protect subsea piping.

URS said it started developing the MRT in response to challenges identified by Decom North Sea around the safe and efficient recovery of some 40,000 concrete mattresses in use throughout the North Sea.

The MRT will be deployed from the company’s UTROV system, a remotely operated tool carrier which is suspended from a surface vessel via a load bearing umbilical.

URS managing director, Patrick Crawford, said: “Over the past few years our R&D activity has focused entirely on developing innovative solutions that will drive cost efficiency and improve processes. We looked at the challenges facing the sector and considered how our existing systems could be enhanced to address these challenges and add real value to the decommissioning sector.

“With Oil and Gas UKs Decommissioning Insight report suggesting this week that the market is very much an emerging one, we’re delighted to be ahead of the curve and in a position to deliver a full package of options to operators for use from early 2017.”

The company said it has completed a series of equipment trials at the Subsea Protection Systems facility in Dundee and expects the tool to be deployed on the first decommissioning project early next year.