Bert Instruments Picks Nexus USBL for Columbia Survey

Subsea survey specialist Bert Instruments has selected Applied Acoustics’ Nexus USBL for its pre and post drilling, environmental and geophysical study in the deep waters off Colombia at the Orca-1 exploratory well, 40 kilometers north of the coast of La Guajira.

Surveys, geophysical and environmental studies were commissioned here to comply with government regulations prior to any production phase.

For the operation Bert Instruments first selected its side scan sonar deployed at high resolution linked to a marine magnetometer with positioning of the field and its anomalies provided by its Nexus USBL. In the next phase the newly acquired Nexus USBL was used to track the Bert Instruments’ inspection class ROV that was investigating the anomalies found in the initial magneto-acoustic survey and to do some transect lines crisscrossing the well position.

“Our Nexus USBL was integrated with a GNSS aided inertial navigation system POS-MV WaveMaster, to provide accurate geo-referenced positioning of the seabed anomalies and proved to be a great addition to our system arrangement. We found the Nexus system very easy to use and it greatly increased our efficiency and overall operational effectiveness.

“At the end of November 2016 we followed up our original work and surveyed the planned well ORCA 2, close to ORCA 1 using our side scan sonar, magnetometer and our Nexus USBL for accurate, reliable positioning once again,“ explained Humberto Guarin of Bert Instruments.

In order to obtain real time video images of the seabed Bert Instruments has configured an entirely new deep water sensor platform, the BerTow, for use on its projects in 2017. This includes a high definition video and still camera, measuring lasers and depth sensors along with positioning from the Nexus USBL. This newly developed system will be used once the trade winds in the ORCA location subside over the winter months.