In June 2014, the
Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) awarded Fugro, through its subsidiary
Fugro Survey Pty. Ltd., the contract to conduct the
search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, despite the firm's "limited experience searching for wrecks on the ocean floor". The initial contract was worth
AUD$52 million, which Fugro won in a bid against several firms including
Oceaneering International,
Odyssey Marine Explorations and
Blue Water Recoveries. Fugro had around 200 employees and 3 search vessels dedicated to the search for MH370. In 2015, in the midst of the search, the company received many criticisms related to their methods and equipment.
Fugro Geoservices, another firm which arose from a 1991 merger in Louisiana which is now based in Houston, Texas, provides boat-based underwater video, sonar, seismic, and magnetic sensing to firms engaged in oil and gas exploration and the aforementioned BOEM US government agency. Fugro provides similar services in Canada, with the inclusion of remotely operated unmanned devices which have advantages of minimizing risks to crew of manned vessels, reducing data latency and increasing analysis speed. The county has retained this Fugro subsidiary's services for orthoimagery, topographic mapping, and geographic information systems (GIS) through at least 2014. In 2022 Fugro opened the
Fugro SpAARC spacecraft mission control center in
Perth, Australia. In 2023, Fugro, along with Australia's Defense Department, was involved in the search for the wreck of the
SS Montevideo Maru which had sunk during WW2. The shipwreck was discovered off the northwest coast of
Luzon Island, on 22 April 2023. For the search, which started on 6 April, an
autonomous underwater vehicle was used. == Controversy ==