customers' needs when they called for assistance. In the meantime, we were also expanding our non-oil and gas services. We are performing underwater search and recovery operations for the US Navy, providing an expanding line of engineering and production services to Government and commercial customers, and performing commercial deep ocean search and recovery operations worldwide. We designed and built two 6,000 meter ROV systems for ourselves, and we are building two other 6,000 meter ROV systems for Government customers. We also get involved with fun projects like building four small, expendable mini-ROVs called xBots that were used by James Cameron on his latest mission to explore the interior of the Titanic. We got some great exposure on Discovery Channel for this, and the pressure tolerant lithium-ion batteries and control technology we developed internally for the xBot has generated a tremendous amount of interest from AUV and underwater instrument manufacturers. We designed and are building a fly-away saturation diving system for the Navy, and we are under contract to provide personnel to maintain and operate the US Navy's recently delivered next generation submarine rescue system. To
better support our customers, we have opened offices in Houston, Norfolk, San Diego, and Hawaii in addition to our existing support facilities in MD and LA. The cumulative effect of our efforts has been a compound annual growth rate for the past ten years of just under 50%, a result we are all quite proud of. MTR As a company that offers manned and unmanned diving services, can you give insights on the pros and cons of man vs. machine? Kutzleb Well, I'm not sure I would call it insight, but I will give my personal opinion on this question. By the way, from the Phoenix perspective, the question has one more element besides man vs machine to consider -- the ADS, which is kind of a hybrid between the diving (man) and the ROV (machine). From a productivity standpoint, which I define as the ability of the above systems to accomplish an identical task, I believe that a man is the most efficient means to accomplish most underwater tasks. There is just no substitute for the manipulative abilities, agility, and 3-D vision available with a diver. Coming in second is the ADS, which gives the 3-D vision but has somewhat
In late summer of 2008, Phoenix is scheduled to take delivery of the MPSV Havila Phoenix, a new 360-ft. vessel equipped with DPII, a 250-ton crane, accommodations for 140, and two dedicated 200-hp, 4000m ROV systems. This vessel will primarily support deep water operations for the company's Houston based Subsea Projects Group.
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Marine Technology Reporter 37
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