C&C Technologies Thriving in the Brazilian AUV Market

C&C entered the Brazilian market with its autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) almost ten years ago. The company has had a steady growth in the country and now provides services that involve measurement of water properties, seabed topography, and seabed soil characterization. C&C uses their own vessels as platforms to launch their AUVs, covering the depth range from ultra shallow all the way to ultra deep 4500 meters and their clients use the data acquired by their AUVs to support their underwater infrastructure construction plans. In Brazil the company has enlarged its scope of services on demand by clients after the success of their seafloor mapping technology using side scan sonars mounted on AUVs C&C is also undertaking extensive work in oceanography and environmental monitoring. Today this specialized work makes up a good part of their revenues in Brazil. As any foreign company working in Brazil, C&C technologies also has to deal with local content policies for the vessels they operate, where after the first two years, a vessel must operate in Brazil with 66% local content. This is one of their major challenges as it is no simple matter to train local technicians to operate their highly complex AUV systems. As the demand for their services continues to grow, so does the challenge to keep up to local content demands when crewing their vessels. C&C is currently fulfilling a $50 million contract by Petrobras. The 730 day contract utilizes C & C’s C-Surveyor II AUV and M/V Northern Resolution vessel. This contract can actually be renewed for an additional 730 days, making the contract potentially worth $100 million. The effort includes running pipeline routes and site surveys to support the exploration and production of deepwater pre salt plays off the brasilian coast. C & C crews are performing sidescan sonar and sub-bottom profiler surveys, coring, and both hull-mounted and AUV-mounted multibeam bathymetric surveys under the contract. C & C Technologies do Brasil, is headquartered in the O&G hub of Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro. The company currently employs more than 200 employees who perform geophysical and marine construction surveys. In addition to providing field surveys, it is fully equipped to process data and compile hazard reports. This highlights the great investments the company has made in its infrastructure in Brazil, where it actually offers a greater scope of services than it does in its U.S. Headquarters.