US based seabed survey and ocean exploration company Ocean Infinity announced it will support Australian marine survey company Guardian Geomatics on an extensive hydrographic project for Shell.
The project, which is planned to commence in June 2019 will be run from Ocean Infinity’s vessel Seabed Constructor and will collect hydrographic data over an area in excess of 800 square kilometers, using up to three Ocean Infinity unmanned surface vessels (USVs), the company said.
Guardian Geomatics, based in Perth, services the offshore oil and gas and renewable markets, with a footprint across Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the broader Asia Pacific region. Ocean Infinity acquired a 25% stake in Guardian in March 2019.
Oliver Plunkett, Ocean Infinity’s CEO, said, “Our ability to utilize multiple USVs simultaneously to collect data across such a vast area, in such a short space of time, and at the same time so materially reducing the environmental impact of the project compared to other service providers, delivers for our clients a truly unique and high value solution.
“This announcement reaffirms the reasons we partnered with Guardian, a dynamic and pioneering company, very much aligned with the vision of Ocean Infinity.”
Steve Duffield, Guardian Geomatics’ Commercial Director, said, “By using unmanned surface vessels instead of a conventional vessel, Shell is able to reduce the onsite data acquisition time by a factor of three. Using Guardian’s Seabed-Cloud technology the data is able to be presented to the users with a much quicker turnaround. The fuel usage on the project is estimated to be reduced by a factor 10.”
