SeaBird Exploration PLC (“SeaBird” or “SBX”) has over the last few months worked with a Norwegian shipyard to develop and plan the construction of a second vessel in addition to the Hugin Explorer for deploying, retrieving and servicing Ocean Bottom Nodes (OBN).
Through a mutual understanding between the yard and SeaBird, a condition for delivering the vessel in Q2/Q3 2012 was that a firm Shipbuilding contract was to be signed within May 2011. SeaBird is still developing its plans for a second OBN crew.
However, at present it is not considered good timing to introduce further commitments on the company with a firm construction contract for a second node vessel.
SeaBird is the front runner in developing the OBN technology, and has successfully completed six surveys for four super oil-majors over the past two years. SeaBird continues to see a growing interest in this technology, and expects more continuity in future surveys with potential for longer term contracts. SeaBird will revert to considerations of expanding capacity in due time.
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Source: Seabird, May 31, 2011.