Swathe Services – Corporate News – October 2009
BLOM Aerofilms awards support agreement to Swathe Services.
Blom Aerofilms Limited has signed an agreement for Swathe Services to provide FIG/IHO CAT A surveyors to support their Hawkeye II topographic and bathymetric LiDAR operations. The Hawkeye system has a unique ability to capture both land and seabed data simultaneously, helping to reduce costs and improve accuracy. Support will be given with dedicated field crew being provided as part the main staffing rotation. Provisions are also in place for additional personnel on an ‘as and when’ required basis.
Work has already been successfully completed in northern Europe where complex areas of shallow water and numerous islands were mapped. James Pike from Swathe Services was on site for 3 weeks during September carrying out calibrations and daily quality assurance data processing to ensure full coverage and survey specification was being achieved.
Further work is planned to take place in other parts of Europe and the USA before the end of 2009. Blom and Swathe Services are very excited about this new alliance and predict a very busy period of operations during 2010.
Swathe Services have secured a 6 month contract with Jan De Nul N.V.
Swathe Services have frequently supported Jan De Nul’s operations on a variety of dredging jobs located in Australia, Saudi Arabia, Namibia and Canada. However, with an increasing workload planned for the coming year Swathe Services have recently been awarded contracts to support their activities in Newcastle, UK and Karratha in Australia. In addition, further support will be provided in the form of a 6 month contract to supply personnel on a rotation basis for a dredging project planned to start in January 2010.
Service Agreement signed with Coastal Science Ltd
Swathe Services has just secured a service agreement with Coastal Science Ltd to supply personnel to support their marine contracts. This framework agreement will allow CSL to expand their activities in survey management, coastal modelling and consultancy. Swathe personnel will provide survey management and on-site Client Representation services for surveys undertaken in support of numerical modelling studies in coastal waters. These studies include marine discharge characterisation, and site assessments for wind and tidal projects in the marine renewables sector.
Indian Ocean Exploration Limited
Swathe Services recently completed work supporting Indian Ocean Exploration, a survey company located on south west of Indian ocean, on a contract undertaking survey operations off the south coast of Madagascar. Personnel were supplied to operate QINSy and Hypack systems interfaced with a Reson 8125 multibeam echosounder, C-Max 2 sidescan sonar and a Seaspy magnetometer onboard IOE 25M survey vessel LA CURIEUSE.
Whilst onsite the survey team were also requisitioned to assist with the salvage operations on the wreckage of a 190m bulk carrier, stuck on a reef off the south coast of Madagascar. Seabed mapping was required to chart the reefs and surrounding areas to ensure that the Dutch salvage team could safely approach and remove the stricken vessel. Additional seabed mapping was also provided to the Malagasy Marine Administration to detect and map the dangerous reef.
For additional information about this contract or Indian Ocean Exploration’s extensive services please email info@indianoceanexploration.com
Turbine construction completed on offshore wind farm
Swathe Services have been providing positioning support since the summer of 2008 for the LISA-A jack-up platform managed by SMIT Marine Projects. The LISA-A platform, which has been used for the construction of 25 wind turbines on a wind farm project located off the north coast of Wales, has just completed the final installation. Swathe Services personnel were used to operate the QPS Tug Management System which was originally installed by Seabed B.V. Additional tasks also included the setup of an RTK base station, conduct positioning and gyro calibrations and to accurately position the platform for wind turbine installations.
Once fully operational the Offshore Wind Farm will produce enough green electricity to meet the average needs of approximately 61,000 homes and will prevent the release of tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year. Swathe Services has been proud to be a part of this environmental friendly project and to be at the forefront of construction for building offshore wind farms.
Alpine Ocean increase their capacity
In August 2009 Swathe Services conducted in-house hydrographic survey training to a group of new surveyors at Alpine Ocean Seismic Survey Inc. Alpine, who provide geophysical, hydrographic, geotechnical and positioning services, had recently employed additional surveyors who required comprehensive swathe bathymetry training on their GeoSwath Plus wide swathe bathymetry system. The intensive course was delivered at their offices in New Jersey, USA and covered all aspects of installation, calibration, operation and processing.
