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RXT Technology
Reservoir Exploration Technology employs the very latest acquisition technology for the provision of Ocean Bottom Cable surveys. From the specially designed cable recovery engines to ION Geophysical VectorSeis Ocean (VSO) cable and four component sensors the RXT crew has been purpose built for safe and efficient operation.
C-wave Source Design
In response to increasing demand for orthogonal geometry (cross-spread) surveys, where radial symmetry of source output is required, omni-directional sources, such at that illustrated below, can be designed to meet specific client requirements. 
Gulf of Mexico Crew
The back deck of the Gulf of Mexico cable/buoy handling vessel, the m/v Bourbon, has been designed for minimum HSE risk exposure with maximum operational efficiency.
M/v Bourbon – Back Deck Layout
OBC cable deployment and recovery is accomplished hands-free using a combination of linear engines and winches. Coupling the superior station keeping capabilities of the M/v Bourbon’s Dynamic Positioning-2 system with the winch/linear engine control systems ensures that the VSO cables are deployed and recovered safely, rapidly and accurately at all times.
Source
Equipped with dual G-gun source arrays, the shooting vessel, the m/v Beulah Chouest, has proven operating experience in the geophysical industry.
Whilst source arrays can be designed to meet specific client requirements, the vessel is currently operating with dual 4070 cu. in. three string arrays, which provide almost 150 bar-meters of acoustic output as shown below.
Cable/Sensors
The VSO system utilises solid-state accelerometer sensors whose performance has been extensively proven onshore.
The Gulf of Mexico operates with 6 cables, each 6000 m long, with 4C sensor nodes spaced every 25m. Each sensor node contains a 3-component MEMS (Micro ElectroMechanical Systems) accelerometer (VectorSeis) and a hydrophone in addition to the cable telemetry electronics. Between the sensor modules there is a steel armoured cable with sufficient strength to carry the tension during deployment and recovery in water depths up to 2000m. This cable design permits the cable to be dragged into position where water bottom conditions allow. Dragging the cable in this way improves sensor coupling to the seafloor. An Ion patented in-line stress decoupling system avoids the compromise in 3C vector fidelity which usually results from such tensioned deployment.
The MEMS three component (3C) accelerometers offer unprecedented sensor performance as documented on the linked spesification sheet. Please click on this for full details. The ability of the sensor to record down to DC allows the orientation of the device to be determined directly from the sensor itself without the need for inclinometers or gimbals thus both simplifying the sensor packaging and improving the vector fidelity of the deployed 3C units to unparalleled levels, as evidenced by the 2003 EAGE paper by Byerley et al.
VectorSeis Accelerometer
Moving Coil Geophone
Each 6000m cable is connected to a radio-controlled remote recording buoy. Data recording to dual Raid discs in each buoy is controlled and QC’d using a long range 900 MHz radio system, whilst geophysical QC is accomplished using a broader bandwidth 2.4 GHz link. Full details of the QC capabilities of the VSO system can be provided on request.
For further information on how RXT’s technology can solve your OBC survey problems please contact:
| Office | Contact | Tel. |
|---|---|---|
| Houston, Texas | Mr. Larry Wagner | + 1 832 242 0700 |
| London, England | Dr. Chris Walker | + 44 208 823 9234 |
| Oslo, Norway | Mrs. Pam Voll | + 47 67 82 85 16 |
| Abu Dhabi, UAE | Dr. Atef Ebed | + 971 2642 8910 |
| Moscow, Russia | Mr. Dmitry Baturin | + 7 495 935 4924 |