Norwegian seismic player Shearwater GeoServices is putting its newly installed electric ROV systems into commercial service for the first time on a seven-week ocean bottom node campaign in the North Sea.
The Bergen-based company said the work will be carried out by the SW Tasman, deploying its proprietary Pearl nodes with the upgraded ROV spread, while the SW Gallien will act as source vessel. Operations are due to start immediately following completion of the ROV upgrade.
Shearwater did not identify the client, field or contract value.
Separate UK marine activity notices, however, point to the work taking place at the Culzean gas field in the central North Sea. FishSAFE lists an OBN survey around Culzean covering a 320 sq km shot area, with SW Tasman handling the nodes, SW Gallien providing the seismic source and Boreas-G acting as support and guard vessel. Mobilisation is given as September 8 for around 50 days, closely matching Shearwater’s newly announced seven-week programme.
The latest job marks another step in Shearwater’s drive to bring more of the OBN deployment chain in-house.
The 2010-built SW Tasman was converted from a conventional 3D streamer vessel into a dedicated deepwater dual-ROV OBN unit in 2023. The conversion gave the ship the ability to deploy and recover seabed nodes with two ROVs while retaining seismic source capability, allowing some surveys that traditionally require separate node and source vessels to be handled from a single platform.
The vessel has since become a key part of Shearwater’s OBN business. Its first major deployment with the company’s compact Pearl nodes came offshore India in 2024, where water depths ranged from about 100 m to 2,900 m. It subsequently moved through back-to-back projects in West Africa, including work offshore Côte d’Ivoire, Angola and Ghana.
The electric ROV upgrade is the latest refinement of that platform. Shearwater said in its second-quarter results last month that it had been optimising the Pearl system through the installation of electric ROVs on SW Tasman. The company said the new systems are intended to improve reliability and operational efficiency across its integrated OBN offering.
The North Sea assignment follows another recent job for the same two vessels. Splash reported in May that Adura, the Shell-Equinor joint venture, had contracted SW Tasman and SW Gallien for a two-month, 220 sq km OBN survey over the Jackdaw field in the UK North Sea.
Shearwater has been adding backlog after a softer start to the year for marine seismic contracting. At the end of the second quarter, the company reported $148.7m of quarterly revenue, with fleet utilisation at 76%. Backlog had risen to $401m by mid-August as the pace of awards improved.
Recent additions include two large ONGC 3D surveys offshore India, adding around 15 vessel months of work, as well as a new seven-week multi-client campaign in the Norwegian Sea.
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