Ashtead Places £1.5 Million Order for Sonardyne Fusion

Leading equipment rental company, Ashtead Technology Ltd of Aberdeen, has placed an order worth
£ 1.5 million (US$ 2.6 million) with Sonardyne International Ltd for the supply of Fusion wideband acoustic positioning systems. This is the largest single order placed to date by a rental company for Fusion equipment.
The equipment ordered by Ashtead includes a variety of MF and EHF frequency Compatt 5 transponders, many of which will be supplied with instrumented endcaps for specialist subsea tasks including structure placement and spoolpiece metrology. These will be operated in conjunction with a number of RovNav 5 LBL transceivers and USBL transceivers. The accompanying topside equipment consists of a single control unit which eliminates the need for the separate on-board acoustic hardware traditionally needed for different subsea positioning and navigation activities. This will enable Ashtead to easily reconfigure the equipment to the meet specific needs of their customer plus attain higher levels of equipment utilisation.
Deliveries of the new equipment have already begun to Ashtead’s headquarters in Aberdeen from where it will distributed to the company’s other offshore rental centres in Houston and Singapore.