France: Orolia to Supply Tuna FAD Tracking Buoys for Thalos

Orolia, global specialist in critical GPS applications, announced today that it has been awarded a contract from Thalos SAS worth over one million euro, for the supply of tuna fish aggregating device (FAD) tracking buoys.

The order was placed as a result of Orolia’s successful launch of the first ever FAD multi beam tuna tracking buoy incorporating five independent echo sounders and the signing of a new two year exclusive agreement that gives Thalo SAS the rights to independently manage the FAD tuna tracking buoy software and services for their existing extensive tuna fishing customer base and to further develop market leading innovative enhancements and software solutions for this system. In addition, this exclusive agreement, with has started end of January of this year, will give Thalos the exclusive right to sell the software and tuna buoy into the global tuna seine fishing market.

The new Multibeam tuna buoy and onboard software gives tuna fishermen the ability to monitor fish activity under and around the Fish Aggregating Device more constantly and accurately, providing them with the information to make more cost effective decisions as to when to make the often long journey to revisit the FAD.

Commenting on the contract, Jean-Yves Courtois, CEO of the Orolia Group, said, “After the notification of 2 contracts in 2012 for the supply of Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) for the observation of fishing fleets and the supply of beacons to track fishing boat fleets and oil slicks, this new contract underlines our capacity and expertise in developing positioning and communication equipment for mobile objects, which are exposed to particularly extreme environmental conditions (flooding, hard impacts or vibrations, high humidity or dust, etc.). Future generations of fishing products will require ever greater levels of specialist technical knowledge and customer specific solutions and services. These products will be based on further integration of different technologies and data. Thalos are already well placed within the global tuna fishing market, offering a number of unique products, solutions and services based upon integrated data solutions. It was therefore logical to give Thalos a license for our software to enable them to further develop the tuna fishing product portfolio in-line with their customer’s ever increasing requirements. Our software platform will keep being used in other applications in growing markets such as monitoring AIS infrastructures”.

“This contract with Orolia enables Thalos to have a direct handle on the software technology and on the operations of the FAD tuna tracking system. Thalos is therefore ideally positioned to meet the rapidly changing requirements of the global tuna fishing market, whilst allowing customers to benefit from new and reactive in-house technical developments that were until now not possible. Thalos will in particular build further customer-oriented software solutions that are smoothly integrated with Orolia’s tuna buoys, while directly ensuring the continuous availability of the service. This contract is an important milestone in the provision by Thalos of integrated services and solutions for the global tuna fishing market.” explains Claude Barraud, CEO of Thalos SAS.

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Orolia, March 6, 2013