Australia to Supply Fiji with Solar- and Wind-Powered Bluebottle Drones for Maritime Patrol

Australia will supply Fiji with Bluebottle maritime drones and the training to operate them, officials announced on Friday. The vessels, powered by solar panels and wind, are designed to stay at sea for more than 180 days and will be used to monitor drug trafficking and other transnational crime in Fiji’s waters. Deployment is expected in 2027.

The arrangement forms part of a A$600 million pledge Australia made in September to Pacific Island countries under the Waqa Moana partnership, which targets organised crime at sea. Fiji approved a new maritime security strategy on Thursday that addresses a documented rise in methamphetamine and cocaine trafficking across the Pacific. Australia’s Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the drones carry sonar to detect vessels and submarines and that regional cooperation on intelligence and interdiction is necessary.

The Bluebottle is built by the Sydney company Ocius. Australia’s own military already uses the type to patrol its northern approaches from a base in Darwin. Ocius opened an east-coast production facility in Sydney on the same day as the Fiji announcement. Earlier this year the Australian government ordered 40 additional units, bringing its fleet to 55. The drones named for Fiji will come from this production stream.

The deal follows the Ocean of Peace Treaty signed by Australia and Fiji in July, a mutual defence arrangement that is Fiji’s first and Australia’s fourth after the United States, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. Fiji has also asked New Zealand’s intelligence service to conduct a six-month review of its own agencies. Pacific states with small populations face the practical problem of monitoring millions of square kilometres of ocean against illegal fishing fleets and “narco-subs” originating from South America.

The Bluebottle programme gives Fiji a persistent surveillance capability that crewed patrol vessels cannot match in endurance. Whether the drones will be integrated with existing regional information-sharing systems, and how many units Fiji will ultimately receive, have not been specified. The announcement places a concrete Australian technology asset inside a broader Pacific security framework that has expanded over the past year.