This is a little-known impact of human activities in the open sea. An offshore drilling rig emits the equivalent of the sound of a jackhammer hitting your window. When installing offshore wind farms, very noisy hydraulic hammers are used to drive the platform piles. If marine mammals pass nearby, this can at least cause tinnitus, or even cause them to lose their hearing. But without this sense, underwater animals can no longer hunt and risk dying. », Points out Christophe Vassal, president of CLS.
CLS, the Toulouse subsidiary of CNES, specialist in satellite services for monitoring fishing and animals, announced this Monday the acquisition of the Brestois Quiet Oceans. This SME (25 employees, turnover of 5 million euros) deploys passive sensors connected to buoys on the water surface to listen to underwater noise. The amount of the acquisition was not disclosed.
Millions of euros at stake for offshore work
The data recovered makes it possible to edit a model of noise pollution to trigger or not offshore construction sites. Quiet Ocean works in particular with operators such as EDF, RTEBouygues, Vinci…
Beyond the protection of mammals, the tool allows project leaders to generate significant savings on work.
« Previously, when a pod of dolphins was detected, the site was stopped for three days (knowing that stopping operations can cost between 1 and 3 million per day). By putting measuring instruments in water, it is possible to restart work quickly after the passage of mammals », indicates Christophe Vassal.
An issue that is all the more essential as noise pollution is regulated by the legislator. “ We are seeing a strong demand for underwater acoustic measurement in Brazil. The country has major offshore projects near the coast, where whales and sperm whales transit, to connect the Atlantic and Antarctica. Brazil requires all offshore operators to take environmental precautions before starting drilling. We deploy small underwater robots equipped with acoustic sensors to take measurements », Specifies the president of CLS.
17th acquisition in fifteen years
The acquisition of Quiet Oceans is CLS’s 17th acquisition since 2009. Last October, the Toulouse company bought Enviro, a provider of environmental and industrial monitoring solutions primarily operating in the Middle East.
This external growth allows it to establish itself in new geographical areas while global warming increases the need for environmental services, particularly in countries in the Southern hemisphere. This acquisition binge makes it possible to expand the portfolio of technologies mastered by CLS. The company has no competitors in all of its solutions but has seen the emergence of outsiders in certain segments such as the Marseillais Agiltech for satellite services for fishing or the Peruvian Megatrack for fishing monitoring. CLS is targeting a turnover close to 200 million euros in 2024.
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