Shearwater Puts Electric ROVs Into Service on a North Sea Node Survey

Norwegian seismic contractor Shearwater GeoServices is putting 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 acts as source vessel. Operations start immediately after completion of the ROV upgrade. Shearwater did not identify the client, field or contract value.

Separate UK marine activity notices 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 8 September for around 50 days, closely matching the seven-week programme announced by the contractor.

The job marks another step in a drive to bring more of the node deployment chain in-house. The 2010-built SW Tasman was converted from a conventional 3D streamer vessel into a dedicated deepwater dual-ROV node unit in 2023. That conversion gave the ship the ability to deploy and recover seabed nodes with two ROVs while retaining source capability, allowing surveys that traditionally need separate node and source vessels to be run from a single platform.

The vessel has since become central to the company's node business. Its first major deployment with the compact Pearl nodes came offshore India in 2024, in water depths from about 100 m to 2,900 m, followed by back-to-back projects in West Africa including work offshore Cote d'Ivoire, Angola and Ghana. The electric ROV upgrade is the latest refinement of that platform, and was described in second-quarter results as an optimisation of the Pearl system intended to improve reliability and operational efficiency.

The North Sea assignment follows another recent job for the same pair. In May, Adura, the Shell-Equinor joint venture, contracted SW Tasman and SW Gallien for a two-month, 220 sq km node survey over the Jackdaw field in the UK North Sea.

Backlog has been rebuilding after a softer start to the year for marine seismic contracting. Shearwater reported $148.7m of second-quarter revenue with fleet utilisation at 76%, and backlog had risen to $401m by mid-August. Recent additions include two large ONGC 3D surveys offshore India, worth around 15 vessel months of work, and a seven-week multi-client campaign in the Norwegian Sea.