Supply & Procurement
The quiet machinery behind every hull and tank — feed, reagents, spares, fuel, cryo consumables, and sensor hardware. A fleet is only as ready as its slowest critical part, and a clandestine fleet is only as safe as its dullest purchase order. We buy patiently, we buy plainly, and we never let a procurement pattern draw a line on a map.
Supply Streams
Six standing supply streams keep the Breeding Station, the Reef Conservatory, the Gyre Stations, and the fleet alive and operational. Each is owned end-to-end by a Logistics desk and shadowed by NEREID against consumption telemetry from the AquaLink mesh.
Feed & Live Foods
Cultured copepods, enriched Artemia, frozen blends, and broodstock-grade pellets for the breeding tanks and the Reef Conservatory. Perishable, high-volume, never allowed to lapse.
RO / Salt & Reagents
Reverse-osmosis membranes, reef salt mix, buffers, trace elements, and assay reagents for life-support and the wet labs. The single largest reagent line is dosing for the Abyssal Holding loops.
PPE & Dive / ROV Spares
Drysuits, rebreather scrubber, thrusters, tether, and the consumable cutters and grippers the Argus Swarm sheds on every net-fouling run.
Fuel & Vessel Parts
Marine diesel and biofuel blends, filters, seals, props, and the long-lead engine and pressure-hull spares that keep the hulls and the DSV Nerites certified for sea.
Cryo Consumables
Liquid nitrogen, cryoprotectant, vials, and dewars for the Genome & Cryo-Bank. Cold-chain integrity is treated as a life-support function, not a convenience.
Sensor Hardware
AquaLink buoy nodes, hydrophones, chemical sensors, batteries, and comms modules — bought dual-use through the conservancy and provisioned by NEREID.
Procurement Principles
Sourcing that reveals nothing
Purchasing patterns are operational intelligence. We split orders across vendors, randomise timing, and route through the public conservancy so that no ledger reads as a campaign in advance.
Dual-use through the front
Anything that could be either research kit or interdiction kit — sensors, optics, fast-boat parts, ROV spares — is bought by GreenSky Aquatics as conservation equipment, with a defensible scientific use on file.
Critical-spares reserve
Every part on the critical list is held to a minimum reserve sized to bridge its lead time twice over. We would rather over-stock a seal than lose a hull's certification mid-campaign.
Supplier & Category Register
Standing categories, their criticality to operations, typical lead time, and the reserve policy Logistics holds against them. Vendors are deliberately not named here; they are held in the sealed register under Legal & Ethics.
| Category | Criticality | Lead Time | Reserve Policy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live & frozen feed | life-support | 1–2 weeks | 21-day rolling buffer; two independent culture sources |
| Life-support reagents & salt | life-support | 2–4 weeks | 90-day reserve; cross-station redistribution plan |
| Cryo consumables (LN₂, protectant) | life-support | 1–3 weeks | Cold-chain redundancy; on-site LN₂ generation backup |
| Vessel fuel & lubricants | mission-critical | days–1 week | Full-bunker policy before any sustained deployment |
| Engine & pressure-hull spares | mission-critical | 8–16 weeks | Duplicate long-lead spares held per hull class |
| Dive / ROV consumables | mission-critical | 2–6 weeks | Two-campaign reserve; cutter/gripper stock pre-staged afloat |
| Sensor & comms hardware | operational | 4–10 weeks | 10% spare node stock; dual-use cover documentation on file |
| PPE & general stores | routine | days–2 weeks | Standard min/max reorder; no single-vendor dependency |