OMS Group and Exail announced on 3 September that OMS had bought a second DriX O-16 uncrewed surface vessel, for seabed survey, route verification and monitoring on subsea-cable installation campaigns1. Cable-lay work needs the route surveyed before the ship arrives and watched while it works, and it is billed by the day, so an operator that repeats an order has usually made the first one pay.
Exail's first DriX O-16 completed sea trials flying a tethered drone and an electro-optical and infrared camera in July. The line from that trial to a second vessel in six weeks is short by the standards of this beat, where most items in a month are notices, memoranda and demonstrations rather than a buyer coming back for more.
The corporate label needs care. Exail still acts in its own name and signs its own contracts. Thales agreed definitive merger terms on 31 July, but the tender offer does not close until 2028, so anything sold today is sold by Exail, not by a Thales subsidiary.
