Swire Pacific Offshore has signed a shipbuilding contract with Singapore Technologies Marine (ST Marine) to design and construct a new seismic acquisition vessel.
The company said construction of the new 68m ship was due to start next month and that delivery was planned for H2 2010. It said it had done extensive planning for this new-build and would be providing the vessel’s basic design and major equipment.
The vessel is to be built to Ice Class and delivered with a helideck, and will be equipped to carry out 2D and 3D surveys.
“This new vessel is a welcome addition to Swire Pacific Offshore’s seismic survey vessel fleet and will greatly assist its renewal and modernisation programme. The vessel has secured a long-term contract with a leading seismic company,” said Swire in a statement.
Meanwhile, Petroleum Geo-Services has cancelled one of four seismic survey ships it ordered from Spanish yard Factorias Vulcano.
PGS subsidiary Arrow Seismic Invest notified the yard and demanded a $53million refund if the charter party was cancelled. However, the yard is to continue building three other seismic survey vessels for Arrow, including two that are scheduled to join the PGS fleet when completed. Under the original arrangement, the other two ships were to have been hired out to rival seismic company WesternGeco, but delivery delays led to the cancellation of one.
“Having received a formal notification by WesternGeco that the company has cancelled the charter party, Arrow has formally notified the yard that it cancels the contract for new-building 532,” PGS said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Vulcano has said it plans to deliver hull number 532 under a shipbuilding contract specified for hull number 533 prior to the cancellation date of July 29 this year.
Turning to operational news, two records have been set up in recent weeks, one for pipelay operations and the other for seismic-survey work. Technip has set two new industry records on the Shell-operated Perdido development in the US Gulf of Mexico.
The French group installed the deepest reeled flowline at a water depth of 2,961m (9,714ft) and installed the deepest reeled steel catenary riser at a water depth of 2,469m (8,100ft).
The flowline and riser had a total length of 13.2km (8.2 miles).
The work was performed using the Deep Blue, Technip’s deepwater pipelay vessel.
Under the terms of separate contracts, Technip supplied the Perdido umbilicals as well as the hull and mooring system for the Spar (3) platform. Tethered in about 2,400m (8,000ft) of water, this record-breaking spar platform will be the deepest such production facility in the world when commissioned.
The ultra-deepwater Perdido field is located in Alaminos Canyon block 857 some 320km (200 miles) south of Freeport, Texas.
Half a planet away, offshore India, the seismic acquisition vessel, CGGVeritas Symphony, notched up a new industry record for 3D seismic production.
French group CGGVeritas said the vessel broke the production record by acquiring 2,490sq km of data during the month of January.
The high-capacity 3D vessel was towing 12 Sentinel solid streamers to carry out a survey for Santos offshore eastern India, where the Australian company is the operator of two deepwater blocks in the Bay of Bengal – blocks NEC-DWN-2004/1 and NEC-DWN-2004/2 – with 100% interest.
Cameron Astill, CGGVeritas executive vice-president Asia-Pacific, said: “The Symphony achieved a tremendous performance that exceeded client expectations.
“The deployment of Sentinel, the industry’s most robust low-noise streamers, ensured that we provided our clients with the best in data quality to complement the speed and efficiency of acquisition.”