SeaBird Exploration PLC has over the last few months worked with a Norwegian shipyard to develop and plan the construction of a second vessel in addition to the Hugin Explorer for deploying, retrieving and servicing Ocean Bottom Nodes (OBN).
Through a mutual understanding between the yard and SeaBird, a condition for delivering the vessel in Q2/Q3 2012 was that a firm Shipbuilding contract was to be signed within May 2011. SeaBird is still developing its plans for a second OBN crew.
However, at present it is not considered good timing to introduce further commitments on the company with a firm construction contract for a second node vessel.
SeaBird is the front runner in developing the OBN technology, and has successfully completed six surveys for four super oil-majors over the past two years. SeaBird continues to see a growing interest in this technology, and expects more continuity in future surveys with potential for longer term contracts. SeaBird will revert to considerations of expanding capacity in due time.
SeaBird Exploration PLC “SeaBird” is a global provider of marine solutions for seabed acquisition of 3D/4C/4D multimode seismic data with OBN operations, marine 2D and 3D seismic data, and associated products and services to the oil and gas industry. SeaBird specializes in high quality operations within the high end of the source vessel and 2D market, as well as in the shallow water 2D/3D market. Main focus for the company is proprietary seismic surveys (contract seismic). Main success criteria for the company are an unrelenting focus on Health, Safety, Security, Environment and Quality (HSSEQ), combined with efficient collection of high quality seismic data.
[mappress] Source: sbexp ,May 31, 2011;