Fugro’s Newest Survey Vessel Goes to Work
Fugro Venturer, the newest of Fugro’s purpose-designed, standardized survey vessels, has departed on her maiden voyage that takes her to the deep waters of Ireland’s Atlantic margin and the far North of the Barents Sea.
The 72-meter vessel is a platform for technological innovation, where Fugro’s trademark technologies such as OARS (centralized command centers with direct access to offshore survey projects), Back2Base (enabling large amounts of survey data to be sent from offshore vessels to onshore processing centers and clients) and ROAMES (a powerful asset management solution streamlining subsea operations) are changing information delivery.
Fugro said it has secured a significant confirmed work backlog so that a campaign of site and pipeline route surveys, for clients including Aker BP, following commissioning and survey trials. Fugro Venturer is contracted to conduct simultaneous analogue/digital surveys, 3D high resolution seismic and environmental sampling and shallow geotechnical operations. An increased level of weather tolerance will ensure a reliable operational program.
Specialized equipment enables sampling in water depths of up to 3,500 meters and a permanent autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) hangar houses a Kongsberg Hugin 1000 autonomous underwater vehicle. The vessel can host a multitude of remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) platforms and the specially designed hull form and propulsion systems ensure acoustically quiet and economical running at higher than standard survey speeds.
Phil Meaden, Regional Director Fugro Europe Marine, explains how the new multi-role vessel will support the company’s marine site characterization and asset integrity contracts: “The Fugro Venturer provides an exceptional range of survey solutions. She will be equally at home in the offshore wind farms of Europe, where Fugro is pioneering innovative UXO and UHR3D seismic surveys and in oilfield inspections, where our latest solutions include fast ROV and fully autonomous inspections.”
