bp ventures, Woodside Energy and Blue Ocean Monitoring back Blue Ocean Seismic Services in a £10 million funding round
• Blue Ocean Seismic Services is developing an autonomous underwater vehicle to conduct offshore seismic surveys.
• The technology will significantly reduce the cost, risk, environmental impact and time currently required for offshore exploration of oil, gas, and carbon storage.
Farnborough, 13 October 2020: Blue Ocean Seismic Services, the marine seismic survey disruptor, has secured a total of £10 million of Series A investment from a group of world-leading energy technology and investment companies: bp ventures, Woodside Energy and Blue Ocean Monitoring.
The investment will be deployed to continue the development of a fully integrated system which uses long endurance self-repositioning autonomous underwater nodes to conduct offshore seismic surveys for oil and gas exploration and reservoir optimisation, whilst also identifying and monitoring carbon storage opportunities under the seabed.
The technology has been designed to be fully containerised, scalable and modular allowing for deployment to survey locations across the globe. While collecting high quality seismic data, the vehicle is anticipated to deliver substantial cost savings and to facilitate a significant reduction in survey time, thereby enabling results to be delivered much faster and at a lower cost than is available through current technologies. In addition to these commercial benefits, Blue Ocean Seismic Services’ integrated autonomous system will reduce the HSSE risks, while the reduced survey time and the use of autonomous vessels will have a range of environmental benefits such as significantly reduced carbon emissions during operations.
To support the project, Blue Ocean Seismic Services has appointed a highly experienced technical team, and has a number of forthcoming engineering roles providing Blue Ocean Seismic Services with the in-house expertise to develop its first autonomous underwater vehicle. In line with its strategy to establish a presence in key oil and gas markets, the team has established a new corporate head office, lab and workshop facility in Farnborough, UK, adding to its existing premises in Perth, Australia. It is planning to open other offices from next year.
All three investors are actively involved in developing the technology and are represented at Board level.
Simon Illingworth, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Blue Ocean Seismic Services said: “This significant investment marks an important milestone in the development of our revolutionary underwater vehicle and we are excited to be opening up a range of new job opportunities in Farnborough. This support from major industry innovators serves as a strong endorsement for our technology and vision as we continue our journey to disrupt the marine seismic acquisition sector. Through our technology, future customers will be able to explore the subsurface of the ocean whilst substantially reducing risk, carbon emissions, duration and cost, enabling customers to overcome a range of challenges.”
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Notes to editors
If you would like to speak to Simon Illingworth regarding the investment and wider business strategy, please send your media bid to BlueOceanSeismic@newgatecomms.com.
Please find the video outlining the vehicle concept here.