With a maiden voyage that takes her to the deep waters of Ireland’s Atlantic margin and the far North of the Barents Sea, Fugro Venturer is the newest of Fugro’s successful purpose-designed, standardised survey vessels, originally formulated in 2013.
The company said the 72-metre vessel is a platform for technological innovation, where Fugro’s trademark technologies such as OARS (centralised command centres with direct access to offshore survey projects), Back2Base (enabling large amounts of survey data to be sent from offshore vessels to onshore processing centres and clients) and ROAMES (a powerful asset management solution streamlining subsea operations) are radically changing information delivery.
Fugro 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 highly reliable operational programme.
Specialised equipment enables sampling in water depths of up to 3,500 metres and a permanent AUV hangar houses a Kongsberg Hugin 1000 autonomous underwater vehicle. The vessel can host a multitude of 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 characterisation 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.”
The Dutch company is currently in a joint venture with Guyanese engineering firm, Ground Structures Engineering Consultants Inc. for development work related to ExxonMobil’s Liza field project.
