SW Tasman
Delivered as a 12-streamer 3D offshore seismic research vessel of the ULSTEIN SX124 design. Has been converted to a dual ROV seismic vessel. The specifications below are based on the original delivery in 2010.
Primary Specifications
Additional Data
Ship history
ULSTEIN designed six seismic survey vessels, which WesternGeco received from 2009 to 2010. All six vessels are based on the SX124 design. Two vessels were constructed at Drydocks World—Dubai, and four were built at Barreras, Spain.
The vessels ranged by delivery date:
'WG Columbus': Hull number 1657 from Barreras, Spain, delivered on 16 March 2009. The first X-BOW® vessel to be built outside the Ulstein Verft yard. Later renamed 'SW Columbus'.
'WG Magellan': Hull number 1658 from Barreras, Spain. Due to strikes in the Vigo area in the spring of 2009, WG Magellan was completed in Viana do Castelo, Portugal, and delivered on 29 July 2009. Later renamed 'SW Magellan'.
'WG Amundsen': Hull number 1659 from Barreras, Spain, delivered on 16 February 2010. Later renamed 'SW Amundsen'.
'WG Tasman': Hull number 64 from Drydocks World Dubai, delivered on 31 March 2010. Later renamed 'SW Tasman'.
'WG Vespucci': Hull number 1660 from Barreras, Spain, delivered on 21 April 2010. The vessel left the yard on 24 April for her first mission in the North Sea. Later renamed 'SW Vespucci'.
'WG Cook': hull number 65 from Drydocks World Dubai, delivered on 2 August 2010. Later renamed 'SW Cook'.
2018: Shearwater announced its purchase of the marine seismic acquisition assets and operations of WesternGeco, the geophysical services product line of Schlumberger, by the end of 2018. All vessels would, therefore, change prefixes.
2019, 6 February: SW Tasman and SW Cook received five-month seismic contracts for Aker BP and Equinor, starting in the summer of 2019. For Aker BP, seismic work would be performed at the Frosk, Ivar Aasen, and Valhall fields, beginning in Q2 2019 and lasting approximately four months. After that came the Equinor assignment on the Gullfaks field, lasting about one month from Q3 2019.
2020, January: SW Cook and SW Tasman were awarded an assignment to execute data acquisition on a two-month 4D Qseabed ocean bottom seismic (OBS) project by Lundin Norway for the 2020 North Sea summer season on the Edvard Grieg field, Norway.
2022, October: Decision to convert the SW Tasman to a dual ROV seismic vessel. Ulstein Design & Solutions AS, the original vessel designers, was to provide the conversion engineering. Redesigned to deploy ocean bottom nodes in both deep and shallow water, the vessel will now also be able to offer high-quality sources for surveys and conduct towed streamer surveys. The conversion is an example of how Shearwater can leverage its flexible fleet to provide additional high-end capacity tailored to clients' needs in response to a significant increase in demand for ocean bottom seismic.
Repurposed and upgraded, the Shearwater Tasman is the first vessel in the industry equipped with the combination of dual remotely operated vehicles, vertical movement/heave compensated launch and recovery systems for ocean bottom node deployment, and seismic sources.
2024, August: First feedback from Shearwater after conversion
2024, August: According to a Shearwater update, the vessel has been awarded a three-month extension to Shearwater's major deepwater ocean bottom node survey in India. It’s already the largest deepwater remotely operated vehicle ocean bottom node survey in Asia, in depths of up to 2,900 m, and now, enabled by operation performance, will be larger. Shearwater shares their insight and a video of this vessel here.
2024, November: Shearwater will deploy the SW Tasman vessel for a newly awarded deepwater ocean-bottom node (OBN) survey offshore West Africa. The one-month program will be the first to feature the vessel’s combined seismic source and dual-ROV node deployment capability for a deepwater OBN survey operation, and it will be the first deployment of Shearwater’s Pearl node technology in the region.