PDE Offshore Corporation has selected underwater positioning equipment from Sonardyne Asia Pte Ltd. to support its work on wind farm construction projects offshore Taiwan.
The company has ordered a Mini-Ranger 2 Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) system and Wideband Sub-Mini 6+ (WSM 6+) transponder/responders to track the position its underwater equipment, which includes a seabed frame used to guide geotechnical corers.
The Mini-Ranger 2 will be installed and operated from PDE Offshore’s 72-metre long survey vessel, MV Geo Energy, which is scheduled to spend this summer working in the Taiwan Strait, evaluating proposed locations for turbine foundations.
“Where we work in the Taiwan Strait, water depth is from 20 to 60 meters; in the future, there might be a chance to work in offshore wind farm with water depth from 50 to 200 meters, so whilst we do need a very precise USBL, we don’t need the one that’s full ocean depth capable,” Huang Hsin-chih , president of PDE Offshore, said.
”Through renting, we have become familiar with Mini-Ranger 2 and the benefits it’s brought to our busy geotechnical operations. So it was a simple choice to decide to go ahead and purchase one of our own.”
The Taipei-based PDE Offshore Corporation is a joint venture between Pan Formosa Engineering Company, Dragon Prince Enterprise, and EGS Asia, providing offshore geotechnical and geophysical services to the energy and other industries.