In light of developing regulatory requirements to provide passive acoustic monitoring and marine mammal detection, Oil and Gas producers in the Gulf of Mexico sought to develop a seabed-based permanent monitoring system that would provide the necessary data to support regulatory compliance, as well as operational data to support deep water field operations.

OSI teamed with its sister company CSA Ocean Sciences, Inc. to design a permanent, cabled seafloor and water column observing system rated to 3000m water depth, providing acoustic monitoring, ADCP current data, pH, and Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS) data.  The system was designed to provide permanent DC power to all systems as well as real-time, continuous data export and system and telemetry via undersea fiber optics to the platform.  A product of this design project was OSI’s Ocean Hub Subsea Node, designed to provide power and communications for long-term in-situ observations.