Specialized vessels (e.g. heavy crane ships, pipelay) can cost 250k-500k per day. A smaller survey vessel will obviously be much cheaper, but there's crew to pay, operating costs, specialized labor costs (ROV engineers, scientists), logistics, fuel, etc. It all adds up.
>You'd think with "drone technology" you could just send these things out there
Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that aren't tethered to a ship are in wide use. However, you still need a ship to deploy, maintain, etc.
Specialized vessels (e.g. heavy crane ships, pipelay) can cost 250k-500k per day. A smaller survey vessel will obviously be much cheaper, but there's crew to pay, operating costs, specialized labor costs (ROV engineers, scientists), logistics, fuel, etc. It all adds up.
>You'd think with "drone technology" you could just send these things out there
Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that aren't tethered to a ship are in wide use. However, you still need a ship to deploy, maintain, etc.
Here's an article: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025322714...