The world’s largest seismic survey vessel, the CGG ALIZE, was christened on March 27,1999 in Saint-Nazaire, France, and entered service in April. Thanks to the exemplary co-operation between participants from a wide range of sectors of the French maritime industry, construction of the CGG ALIZE demonstrates a shared commitment to meeting the challenge of building, outfitting and operating a state-of-the-art, high-tech vessel.
Chantiers de l’Atlantique, a subsidiary of Alstom and a world leader in passenger ship construction, met the technological challenge of building a ship combining exceptional power, superior manoeuvrability and the silent running capability required to avoid interference whilst conducting seismic surveys. The solution involved an installed power of 26,000 hp driving two propellers modeled on the ones developed for French Navy submarines. With the CGG Alizé, Chantiers de l’Atlantique has strengthened its diversification into the construction of high value-added ships. The company’s ambitious industrial and marketing strategy is aimed at building five to six vessels a year, including cruise liners, high-speed vessels, LNG tankers, naval vessels and purpose-built ships.
The CGG Alizé provides an effective balance between requirements for maximum working space and for outstanding nautical range. More than 3,500 square meters are reserved for operating areas and seismic equipment, while enough capacity has been installed to carry six months of provisions and allow the ship to stay at sea for up to 120 days. The CGG Alizé was outfitted by Sismique SA, a subsidiary of LOUIS DREYFUS ARMATEURS, and the launching reflects the Group’s strategy of developing its marine engineering expertise. LOUIS DREYFUS ARMATEURS has invested more than FF 1.5 billion to launch five French-registered vessels over a period of several months, thereby strengthening its position as France’s leading shipowner with 45 vessels operating under its control.
CGG Marine, a subsidiary of Compagnie Générale de Géophysique and LOUIS DREYFUS ARMATEURS, devised the vessel’s specifications to combine maximum productivity with leading-edge technology. With 16 streamers covering more than 100 kilometers, the CGG Alizé will meet the demand of oil companies for surveying vast deep-sea regions. The ship also offers innovative proprietary CGG Marine solutions, including fully automated systems developed to reduce streamer deployment times while enhancing operational safety. Its range has been further extended by state-of-the-art onboard computing and remote data transmission technology. Data can be transferred rapidly to customers for analysis via V-SAT satellite link, thanks to CGG’s Geovecteur® plus seismic data processing software installed on a very high capacity parallel-processing computer.
The partnership developed for the CGG Alizé project illustrates the forward-looking capabilities of French manufacturing and service companies offering strategically related skills in the highly competitive global shipbuilding, outfitting and seismic surveying markets.
Above images are of the vessel CGG ALIZE 3 miles off Valletta, Malta for a crew change on 22nd April, 2005.
Photos by Capt. Lawrence Dalli. Do not use these images without my permission. © All rights reserved. Malta Ship Photos & Action Photos – www.maltashipphotos.com
