Axa Engenharia Submarina Ltda. (AXA), a subsidiary of DeepOcean Group, has been awarded a contract for the provision of geo-hazard surveys on the Libra Field from Petróleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) led consortia, consisting of Shell Brasil Petróleo, Total E&P do Brasil, CNODC Brasil Petróleo e Gás and CNOOC Petroleum Brasil.
The contract is for the provision of geo-hazard survey on a seafloor area of 1640sq km in the Libra field.
The Libra field is 2000m water depth in the Santos Basin, about 230km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Surveys will be performed with a 3000m-rated autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The AUV is capable of delivering high resolution high quality HISAS bathymetry and side scan sonar data for Sub Bottom Profiling (SBP) at high speeds.
The AUV operations are launched and supported by the survey support vessel MV Tau on charter to DeepOcean. The contract will start as soon as current AUV commitments have been completed.
The contract is the second AUV-based survey contract DeepOcean and AXA have been awarded recently in Brazil. DeepOcean says the contracts support the firm's strategic investments in AUVs, adding to its fleet of ROV-based subsea survey and pipeline inspection services.