Fincantieri, the only shipbuilding complex in the world active in all sectors of high-tech shipbuilding, and Saipem, global leader in the engineering and construction of infrastructures for the onshore and offshore energy sector, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to evaluate opportunities for commercial and industrial cooperation in the field of autonomous underwater vehicles and their integration with surface and underwater units. The Memorandum, signed at Palazzo Marina, headquarters of the Navy General Staff, is among the initiatives aimed at promoting and developing national excellence in the Underwater sector.
The agreement aims to enable the participation of the two companies in programs of relevance in the Italian and international market in the field of surveillance and control of critical underwater infrastructures and rescue activities, through the use of specific complementary technologies from Fincantieri and Saipem. The collaboration involves the integration between surface ships and submarines built by Fincantieri and the "Hydrone" drone development program of Sonsub, the Saipem center of excellence that creates underwater technologies and solutions.
Saipem is in fact the first company in the world to have qualified and marketed autonomous resident underwater drones for intervention and inspection activities up to 3.000 m of depth, designed and industrialized between Marghera and Trieste, which have already been used for control and maintenance activities of subsea infrastructures in the offshore energy market serving major energy companies.
Fincantieri has placed itself at the center of the development programs of the Underwater supply chain, with extremely promising business opportunities, also thanks to the ability to drive effective integration between the Defense and civil industries. The Group has built 1929 submarines from 180 to today, of which 105 in the Muggiano shipyard.
With the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, Fincantieri and Saipem intend to position themselves as a reference for the underwater dimension, whose strategic centrality is increasingly evident in the current geopolitical context.
