Offshore staff
FARNBOROUGH, UK — Blue Ocean Seismic Services (BOSS) has completed passive and active seismic trials offshore of its Marine Swarm Robotics technology.
It plans to start pre-commercial trials during second-half 2023.
The development has the support of bp Ventures, Woodside Energy and UK/Australian company Blue Ocean Monitoring.
BOSS is developing a fleet of autonomous subsea nodes for capturing seismic data from the ocean floor for applications ranging from offshore oil and gas through offshore wind and carbon capture and storage.
It claims that its underwater vehicles will help the offshore seismic sector speed up operations, at the same time being less carbon intensive.
Tests in Plymouth, southwest England, in the North Sea and Australia are said to have proven the effectiveness of the command-and-control systems, underwater flight performance, seismic coupling and active seismic data acquisition.
During the recent North Sea active seismic trial, achievements included acquiring additional cycles of active seismic data with the company’s alpha vehicles (AP-OBSrV) alongside conventional ocean-bottom nodes (OBNs); testing engineering solutions for optimization purposes identified in previous trials in August 2021 trials; and confirming the capability of the AP-OBSrV to maintain a close seismic coupling with the seabed, especially where there are cross-currents.
BOSS aims to start commercial operations in 2024, initially through the assembly of up to 250 OBSrV version 1 nodes (based on the AP-OBSrV design) in batches.
It is also in discussions with industry partners on pre-qualifying its services for future tender opportunities, and it plans to open a new office in Houston early next year.
11.22.2022
