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Thales-Sonsub 'Prestige' Contract
01 Sep 2003
Thales GeoSolutions and Sonsub have been retained by Spanish oil company Repsol YPF to design and build ROVs for deepwater surveys and investigation of the Prestige oil tanker which sank 150 miles off the north west Spanish coast last November, occasioning widely-reported environmental damage and political arguments as to who exactly was responsible.
Under a contract reportedly worth several million euros, the three organisations have already assembled a team of experts and ROVs designed for physical intervention work at depths not previously attempted by industry, at nearly 4,000m. As prime contractor, Sonsub in Aberdeen maintains managerial control in addition to operational responsibility aboard its dynamically-positioned vessel, DPV Polar Prince . Meanwhile, Thales GeoSolutions is providing seabed mapping, geotechnical engineering and precise DGPS and acoustic positioning while also assuming responsibility for presenting results in a GIS-type database for analysis and further project planning.
According to Thales, a number of significant technical developments have already been realised. They include ROV intervention at 3,800m covering external and internal oil level measurements, mine-cone penetrometer testing, multibeam surveys, environmental assessments and geotechnical engineering studies.
All of them are aimed at finding the best solution for extracting remaining oil from the ill-fated Prestige wreck.
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