French, Saudi Groups Team Up to Develop Seabed Robots

The French seismic exploration specialist CGGVeritas and the oil group Saudi Aramco unveiled on Tuesday a deal to jointly develop a robotic technique to explore seabeds for reserves of crude oil.

Dubbed SpiceRack, the technique is "based on the deployment of self-propelled recording nodes," and could "lead to a step-change in the efficient delivery of reservoir quality seismic data," a statement said.

As part of the project, CGGVeritas is to develop ties with King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, and establishing with Saudi Aramco a center at the Dhahran Techno Valley in Saudi Arabia.

The statement quoted Aramco executive Samer Al Ashgar as saying that the project would augment his group's research and technology portfolio, "and is expected to deliver a game changer in automating seismic data acquisition.”