NCS adds AUVs
With acquisition of a further two Teledyne Gavia AUVs from their Icelandic manufacturer, Aberdeen based NCS Survey now claims to be operating the world’s largest commercial fleet of portable systems for offshore applications.
For three years, the company says, it has been operating vehicles in difficult access and remote areas such as the southern tip of Argentina while securing high levels of repeat commissions from clients including BP, Shell and ConocoPhillips.
The Gavia Offshore Surveyor models are equipped with all inclusive high resolution sidescan sonar, multibeam sounder, sub-bottom profiler, ultra-short baseline positioning, long baseline, GPS and inertial navigation facilities. They are essentially used to provide ultra-high resolution data for pipeline and platform inspections and scour monitoring surveys as well as cable, pipe route and offshore wind farm studies.
Vehicles are rated to 1,000m but regularly operate in depths as shallow as 2m. They can also be operated in currents of more than 2 knots under jack-up drilling rigs and very close to fixed platform structures. Increased use of the versatile systems reflects a growing demand from current and future clients for advanced AUV services, says NCS Survey president Andy Gray.
